First things first, shame on you Politico for showing outdated projection results. The actual outcome has been published now (after big cities' votes, including Paris, have been counted) and Far Right lost 5% (they're now polling at 29.2%), barely ahead of the Left Alliance (28%). That's both lower than the polls (which were giving her a whoping 37%), and their result in the last presidential elections.
Secondly, seat projections, right now are highly unstable due to our two turns system. RN (Far Right) might have some allies from the trad right wing parry who was utterly destroyed, but both the NFP (Left Alliance) and Macron's Renaissance* have said their candidates need to desist when they're third and Far Right is first to try to cumulate their votes.
*Macron's PM Gabriel Attal has, for the moment, said there might be exceptions to that rule for the candidates of the radical left party France Unbowed which they consider to be be 'too extreme' for their taste so we'll see.
(Also, slight reminder that Politico is a property of Alex Kreuger, the German equivalent of Rupert Mudrock. Don't expect full neutrality.)
The western middle class is voting for self destruction it seems. Apparently we really need to demolish everything we‘ve accomplished in terms if wealth and human rights of the last 70 years just to one day realize how good we‘ve had it now. Let‘s hope we can bounce back eventually and don‘t have to spend centuries in serfdom to the super wealthy.
They have been voting for self-destruction for a long time.
All social security nets have been taken away by their favorite Neoliberal. Now people are poor and mad and they're going to vote even more right wing.
Unless a country shifts left this is the inevitable outcome. Lesser-evil'ing into self destruction.
Well said. And I'm not sure if that last bit was meant to be sarcastic, but it looks to me people got tired of lesser-evil'ing and just vote for the most evil instead. And I doubt many of them actually aim for improvement. They're in full destruction mode and deep down they know that.
I don't understand what macron was thinking. If they got this result 3 weeks ago, rushing new elections with no time for an extended electoral campaign was going to get the same results, no?
It boggles the mind honestly. So many people I've talked to are wondering what he was thinking, too. Was it just a delay tactic to hope for a miracle? Some sort of deus ex machina?
Destroy the incoming alliance between our two Far Rights parties (that worked)
That the trad right party would implode (that worked)
That the left would self-combust like always (that did NOT happen)
And that he would thus be the 'only credible choice' against Far Right. (Note that in the last legislative elections, he was NOT given a majority in the National assembly so that he'd have to negotiate with other parties, which he refused to do anyway, except maybe with the small trad right wing party).
Obviously, that didn't work out. As other in the French subs have pointed out, he's an ex-banker. He's used to making risky bets. But now's first time where he has to assume the consequence if he looses it.
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally made big gains in the first round of a snap election that could upend political orthodoxy across Europe and beyond, with implications for markets and global security that will be hard to predict.
The French far right is skeptical of France’s role in both NATO and the EU and a victory for the National Rally in Paris would have the potential to disrupt Western alliances when they’re already under strain.
If the early estimates are confirmed in later results, Le Pen’s party, now led by the slick 28 year-old Jordan Bardella, stands a good chance of forming a ‘cohabitation’ government under Macron’s presidency.
“Faced with the [rise of the] National Rally, we need to foster a wide unity that is clearly democratic and republican ahead of the second round,” Macron said, according to a statement from the Elysée Palace.
The French president shocked the nation and France’s international allies when he triggered the vote only a couple of weeks before the Olympic Games, after a humiliating defeat in June’s European parliament election.
“I consider that no vote should be cast for the candidates of the National Rally, nor for those of [hard-left] France Unbowed,” said Philippe, who is Macron’s former prime minister and the head of center-right party Horizons.
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