To be shit scared about the French elections

[brexitstolemyfuture]

Recent events could of given her a big boost, I'm getting pretty worried :(

Anyone in on the ground to reassure?

Greenginger I'm not a "sudden expert", I've been living in France for decades and have a political junkie French husband :-) I can give you lots of sources if you read French, if not this is a good place to start: www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38321401

Ending free schooling for the children of illegal immigrants is pretty batshit.

I live in France. 22 years. Just had my Naturalisation turned down but appealing that.

She's going to win as far as I'm concerned. My DP says not as does his family. Of 5 kids 3 are married to foreigners like me. He also says if it's MLP it won't be as bd as I'm imagining. That nothing will change.

What I imagine will change in view of what I've read post Brexit is that people will feel free to say what they actually really think about foreigners and all the job stealing, house price increasing, healthcare costing etc we do.

DP says he'd have voted "blanc" but wasn't able to vote. He said all the choices are bad.

I don't think Le Pen will get through. It won't be like when her dad got trounced in the 2nd round against Chirac (2002) - basically Le Pen only had the same number of voters vote for him in both rounds, whereas in the second round everyone else voted for Chirac.

I think she'll probably increase the number of votes she gets, but Macron will have a strong win.

Wally - just out of curiosity, why was your naturalisation refused? I got my easily after 6 years in France

MLP has recently denied France's responsibility for rounding up 13,000 Jews in Paris during WW2 and sending them to Auschwitz, despite previous and current Presidents publically apologising for it. She also wants immigrants to pay for their education in France.

70% of my little village voted for LePen, I find that fucking scary. She's a fascist, a media savvy fascist, but a fascist nonetheless.

A vote for Macron is basically a vote for a younger Hollande with better hair. Macron will be elected as the majority of French voters will vote for anyone but Le Pen and we'll back where we are now in 2022.

I wonder if MLP changed the name of the party to something inocuous would that make a difference to her support?

Macron ditched Hollande and called himself something else, and romped home.

I am not saying French voters are stupid or anything, but marketing is everything these days.

Anyway, judging by the endorsements from most of the losing candidates/parties towards Macron I would hope a MLP win won't happen.

But no one knows. It is looking like a rout though in favour of a possible lame duck one term Macron.

It was Mélenchon all the way where I live, MLP was a very distant fourth. Vive le 9-cube!

YABU and also a bit hysterical.

Interesting you say about changing the name @Mollyiscoddled with the news now that MLP has stepped down as party leader 🤔

Mmm I've also seen that MLP has now 'temporarily' stepped down as party leader. To me, it looks like such a transparent way of convincing people to vote for her that I'm not sure it'll be very successful in helping her win the election.
What does everyone else think?

Eh? So which party does she represent?

Why would you temporarily step down as party leader?? Just before an election!?

Can someone in France explain why she'd step down as leader at this point?

My French mate says Le Pen won't get in. I hope to God she's right.

From what I've read in the French press, it's considered as a surprising but pretty meaningless gesture, but the idea is to broaden her appeal and enable her to reposition aspects of her platform. She says she is "on holiday" from the post of FN leader, and that she feels the president shouldn't be aligned with a political party as their job is to represent all of France.

Presumably she wants to disassociate herself from the FN as she thinks she can hoover up some of the Melenchon vote? They have a lot of policies in common.

That's exactly it. She said in her interview last night that she wants to bring all of France together now. It could be quite a smart mine and definitely has echoes of how Macron has positioned himself as outside traditional party politics and neither on the right or the left.

Quite a smart move I mean! Typo.

You must be a liberal. Lol! Go with the flow. At least it's not WW3...
Yet!

lessworried love your comment about Macron being like Hollande but with better hair 😂 Very true though.

And actually thinking about MLP's decision to temporarily step down, it does seem fairly canny. Wonder what will happen now? I guess only time will tell

Someone was just on the radio saying mlp would be best for the UK as macron hates the UK and is part of the banking establishment

MLP certainly isn't best for British nationals living and working in France, as her proposed tax on French companies employing foreigners would severely limit our job prospects and threaten our livelihoods.

Sorry the blank space in my last post was meant to be .

Wow what radio programme was that brexit? I'm sure Macron would be better for the UK, not least because he's more liberal. Le Pen would Ike to withdraw France from the EU and would also like to make it more difficult for foreigners to obtain French citizenship.