Anyone following the European elections?

[NoraLuka]

Apologies if there’s already a thread, I searched and didn’t find one.

I’m watching from France and trying to understand exactly what it means that Macron has dissolved the Assemblée nationale.

I can’t believe how well the far right has done, it’s like all the others have been swept away. Even DD1 who doesn’t care about politics was glued to the TV news this evening.

Agree, @Brexile, their discourse was pathetic at first. They seem to have become clearer over the last two days.

I think that a likely outcome on Sunday is that none of them has a majority and they all spend the next year unable to agree on anything.
Yes, that's probably what I'm hoping for. So frustrating to hear people cite the cost of living or "purchasing power" as a reason to vote FN 🙄
Now France Info is talking about the UK elections - and Dominic Grieve is speaking live in absolutely amazing French , explaining why the tories are about to b booted out. Someone else mentions the UK's own extreme-right party which is also on course for record results 😏

(*to be booted out. Has the edit button disappeared?)

Hello, glad I've found this thread. I will be voting in the French elections on Sunday. Trying to get a sense of how things might go with all the désistements but I can't get my head round it!

I don’t understand how anyone can make predictions as to the outcome with all the désistements. Not saying that the predictions are wrong, just that I don’t understand how it’s possible to accurately predict how people will vote when so many of them won’t have their first choice candidate available anymore.

Frexit definitely won’t happen, at least not in the next few years! There used to be a Frexit presidential candidate and he’d score about 0.3% or something.

Just saw on the news that an Ensemble candidate was attacked while putting up flyers, and a couple of her team are in hospital - not sure how serious it is though, or who attacked them. What is wrong with people at the moment?

I think the difference between this year and other years is that it’s become socially acceptable to vote RN, at least around here in an area of la France profonde where historically, the far right has never won anything.

Everyone assumes I don’t vote RN for a variety of reasons (correct!) but I’ve had a few people try to convince me that I should, and that has never happened in the 20 years I’ve lived in France.

Sorry for the essay!

@NoraLuka Honestly, I'm quite worried. I don't see there being a positive outcome from this election.

I don't think the RN will win a majority, although I could be wrong.

What worries me is that we will end up with a real Motley crew of a government ranging from the far left to the centre or even centre right in order to defeat the far right, and the significant number of people who voted for the far right will feel that yet again their democratic choice has been thwarted.

And I fear that it won't just be thwarted, it will be thwarted in such a way as to really rile people up. I thought this in 2017 when Macron was first elected, and even as someone who was passionately pro European and anti Brexit it troubled me that Macron did his victory walk to Ode to Joy with the EU flag around his shoulders. Doing that was clearly a deliberate "fuck you" to the third of the electorate who had voted for Le Pen. Doing it to the Marseillaise whilst wearing a French flag would have upset no one and would not have antagonised his opponents even more than they already were. And I think that really set the tone for how his leadership has been. Arrogant, out of touch, believes most people are ignorant fools who don't know what's in their best interests. Does he not have any PR people or does he just not care?

As for today, I'm politically centrist but I disagree with certain left wing policies, such as self ID. Even this week Macron has been accused of transphobia by both the left and those within his own party for saying that the LFI want people to just be able to pop down to the mairie and change their gender at the drop of a hat. Why is he taking cheap shots at the people his party will be in coalition with this time next week assuming the RN doesn't get a majority and Ensemble isn't wiped out altogether? They'll only want to punish him by bringing in exactly these kinds of policies to demonstrate that he might still be the president, but he's not in charge. And that in turn will rile up the socially conservative, anti-woke RN voters and the increasingly right wing youth who have been watching Jordan Bardella videos on TikTok the same way angry young men in the English speaking world have been getting their political views from Andrew Tate.

It's all going to boil over at some point, isn't it?

Thank you Miss Scarlet, you say it much better than me. I said Macron was 'getting into bed' with the hard left/communists etc and probably did not word it right, but I am worried that they get a voice and I dont want hard left or hard right to have control in France.

The problem is that politics is becoming ever more polarised and the hard left and the hard right probably both represent more of the electorate than the political centre does. And Macron has really not endeared people to the political centre. I am politically aligned with Macron and I am voting for his party in this election (the first French election in which I have been eligible to vote) and even I think he is toxic now.

From a democratic point of view, the far right and the far left should have a voice. But quite apart from the impact of their policies for France, you can't very well have a far right and far left coalition, so you end up with a broadly centrist outcome which very few people voted for or want.

"And I fear that it won't just be thwarted, it will be thwarted in such a way as to really rile people up. I thought this in 2017 when Macron was first elected, and even as someone who was passionately pro European and anti Brexit it troubled me that Macron did his victory walk to Ode to Joy with the EU flag around his shoulders. Doing that was clearly a deliberate "fuck you" to the third of the electorate who had voted for Le Pen. Doing it to the Marseillaise whilst wearing a French flag would have upset no one and would not have antagonised his opponents even more than they already were. And I think that really set the tone for how his leadership has been. Arrogant, out of touch, believes most people are ignorant fools who don't know what's in their best interests. Does he not have any PR people or does he just not care?"
I personally don't mind if FN voters are riled. I truly believe there is nothing to be gained by pacifying them - see how it worked out for the tories, they've just enabled Reform and are collapsing on themselves. Do you think FN voters have felt loved and understood if Macron had walked on stage with the Marseillaise? The EU flag is not controversial in France as far as I know, beyond maybe a small fringe of people. Why should we indulge the 5%? They can all put their case forward for leaving the EU if it's such a vote-winner, and see how far it takes them.

" But quite apart from the impact of their policies for France, you can't very well have a far right and far left coalition, so you end up with a broadly centrist outcome which very few people voted for or want." Well it's about reaching a compromise, no one gets exactly what they want, but the options that are strongly repulsive are avoided... What could a solution be, a broad coalition system? Like where? Because up to a point, it's the same in the UK.

To be honest, I do not know what to make of it and nor do my French family.

Thomas Pickety had some really interesting things to say about the current political situation last week. Basically that the assembly of the moderate leftist and rightists into En Marche which is a broadly centrist but technocratic party with no real political philosophy behind it other than getting stuff done, has created a massive power vacuum and an opportunity for the far left and far right to become more prominent and more powerful.

I was listening to some analysis the other day which suggested that the concerns that the FN are playing to are not just about immigration but about the dissolution of traditional French culture. Which, let’s face it, has always been a bit triggering for the French. Basically, the whole left behind versus metropolitan elite narrative that Farage has successfully run with in the UK. And while I don’t think that it is an imminent possibility, and don’t hear much talk about it among family, I do know that there are loads of Frexiters in the rural towns we visit, both in the Haute Savoie and in Provence. None in Paris course. There was a particularly vigourous poster campaign up and down the local mountains around my father-in-law’s area last year!

I have no doubt there are some Frexiters (there's even some royalists, and a king-in-waiting) but Frexit will never happen because we can see what happened to the UK. It will be too easy for any Remain campaign to point to that to put off lexiters... and without them it will never get more than 50% of the vote (disclaimer- I never thought that Trump would get elected so I clearly have too much faith in mankind...).
The next winning party imo will come from the centre again, maybe the centre left... Place Publique, maybe? Former macronists in my family felt let down by Macron's handling of Green issues. And they weren't really macronists in the first place, it's just that he was less bad the other options. I mean, people aren't really excited by Starmer, here... He mainly shines because he's not the tories who made so many unforgivable mistakes. It’s the way it is, you just vote for whoever is not the worse and has a chance of winning.

Fawful I think you are right that the UK Brexit shitshow is enough to put anyone else off. It seems to have put a stop to Nexit in the Netherlands too.

However, the more general drift to the nationalist, isolationist right across Europe is a worrying trend. DBIL is in Serbia, and it’s really, really concerning there (considering they’ve got bad form.)

I didn’t know about there being a French King in waiting. That’s crazy!

I think there’s also descendants of Napoleon knocking around as well, in waiting to become the Emperor 😂

@MissScarletInTheBallroom that’s it, I can’t see any positive outcome from this election. If there’s a coalition of random parties I don’t see how they’ll get anything constructive done unless they all put their egos aside and decide to work together. I worry that if the country is a mess for the next few years it will make it easier for the RN to get in next time.

The RN have a massive advantage because they’ve never been in power so can’t be blamed for any current problems and it’s easy for them to present themselves as a fresh new solution - I don’t think they do have any solutions in practice, I’ve never seen them do well in a debate with opponents.

All the RN voters I know insist that they’re not racist, but maybe that’s just when they’re speaking to me because my DC are half Algerian. I do think RN voters can’t be ignored, there are more and more of them at every election and they’ll end up in power if the trend continues.

I don’t know if people are afraid about French culture disappearing because I’m in an area with a strong regional identity and nobody is afraid that it’s going to disappear! Although some people do get really, really wound up if you suggest changing any traditions (even minor things, and even as a joke!) like having a veggie option as well as a hog roast at the village fete. These last few weeks have been really making me question living here, and not just because of the elections.

That’s a long enough essay for today!

Following for results chat later. Here’s hoping RN do less well than predicted🤞

Exit polls saying that’s exactly what happened. What a relief.

Looks like the exit polls were right 🙂

I feel better for knowing that over 60% of people in my area didn’t vote for the RN.

I’m curious to see what the new government will look like.

Marine Le Pen looked quite chilled and happy in an interview after the results came out, that was surprising. Maybe she thinks the coalition will be chaotic and she’s just going to sit back and watch?