Macron and Le Pen go through to run off for French president

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Worrying to have Le Pen as a candidate this far in, but hopefully voters will be switching to Macron.

Anti Semitism does seem to be a problem in France.

edition.cnn.com/2017/02/24/europe/france-paris-assault/

www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/24/toulouse-shootings-assassin-jewish-school

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-attacks-moment-armed-police-storm-kosher-supermarket-shooting-gunman-and-freeing-hostages-9969936.html

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/strasbourg-rabbi-jewish-stabbing-france-latest-attacker-knife-allahu-akbar-terrorism-a7198991.html

Your right Mistigirl a part of the French left actively supports anti-semitism by refusing to stand up to this.

I don't do links but I know that that is true of all the very Catholic countries in Europe esp Poland. Worse than France. Nowadays the vast majority of the Fr. people I know are not church goers, rather like England.

Your right Mistigirl a part of the French left actively supports anti-semitism by refusing to stand up to this.

I don't think anti-semitism is specifically a French problem here. All the far right parties in Europe have similar issues.

Nor is it uniquely an issue for the French left. I had a rant this morning at someone in the UK posting gleefully in FB about how the French left had the "balls" to reject both Macron and Le Pen. Anyone who seriously thinks that there is a moral equivalence between the two needs to take a long hard look at their values. If that's the left, then I am no longer part of the left.

I don't do links but I know that that is true of all the very Catholic countries in Europe esp Poland. Worse than France. Nowadays the vast majority of the Fr. people I know are not church goers, rather like England.

Research I've seen suggests that the French are now signficantly less religious than the British. Secularism is very deeply entrenched here, much more so than in the UK. No state school is allowed to discriminate on religious grounds for example.

I am astounded that FN is not getting more grief about anti-Semitism outside of a couple of newspaper headlines, especially as it seems to be a sequence, not an isolated incidence, after MLP's statement about WW2 round-up, her bizarre assertion that French Jews will have to relinquish Israeli citizenship (as will any non-EU or Russian dual national) and the replacement leader fiasco.

I am becoming incredibly nervous about turn-out for Macron. So many people saying they will vote blanc, or making weird claims of moral equivalency between Le Pen and Macron.

I'm concerned about turnout too, but if you live in a rural area (as I do) you may be getting a distorted view of how this is playing out. I live in an area with a high Melenchon and Le Pen vote, so inevitably I see more of the ni-nio-facists than you will if you are in a city or the west, where both extremes do less well.

I live in a suburb of Paris.

I don't know many Le Pen supporters around here but there is very little excitement about Macron.

Non of the links I posted to murderous recent anti Semitic attacks in France involved the far right or the FN. The FN do have an unpleasant history of anti Semitism and holocaust revisionism however they don't appear to be the ones currently murdering Jews. That would be the Islamists or indeed Arab youth.

Interesting article in today's Times (behind the paywall) suggesting that if le Pen doesn't succeed this election, then she will next time. it could be a fan but not from the tone of the piece, more horrified TBH.

Author is suggesting that, as with brexit, the shy voter is under-represented in the polling.

I wonder if Le Pen winning is really what is needed.

I don't mean to imply it would bring about short term benefits but over the longer term, it may do.

Well if you want Fr. to round up all it's immigrants (including the British\ Europeans ones) and remove them. Then great Soya.

The Brits at home will love having a load of homeless expats on their streets or fighting them for every low priced property going.

Soyamilk, which policies of hers do you think could bring benefits long term?

lessworriedabouthecat that may be true, but I think that creating an atmosphere where revisionism and not accepting others is the norm encourages more dangerous acts and means that the FN is playing a large role in societal division. I completely understand the French Jewish community's fears for their safety as the result of Islamic extremism and criticism of Israel being used as a cover for racism and discrimination, but I don't think that Le Pen has the answer for that. I also don't know how the community will react to Le Pen's proposals to ban pork-free school meals, ritual slaughter and dual citizenship with non-EU states.

I don't think that the FN actually gives a shit about stopping terrorism. It is the major driver of their popularity and allows them to propagate their vision of a single French culture which far predates the current problems.

Just as in the States, people were urging to vote for crooked Hilary on the naïve basis that anyone was better than Trump. Outsders ( outside France, I mean) assume that anyone is worse that Le Pen, so Macron should be the choice. Not so simple, Macron was part of Hollande's team - and France has the worst record in Europe on unemployment during Hollande's disastrous presidency.
There is real anger in the boonies about the Eurotrash EU elite so not remotely surprising if he doesn't get it.

I don't mean her policies, as such. I mean that I think something dramatic has to change and people will not have it. They keep insisting that everyone is racist/right wing/ thick.

Well, Le Pen voters are pretty much by definition OK with racism, and many of them are uneducated.

Nothing "dramatic" has to change. France mostly just needs to sort out its labour laws so that it is easier to hire - but every time someone tries this it brings the left out on the streets. (There may be a window of opportunity coming, because the European economy is doing quite well and there is decent growth in French manufacturing.)

Macron does not have his association with the current government and Hollande hanging over him.

Macron was behind some of the more sensible policies during the Hollande government (notably on work law).

Mistri It seems to me that the French people hate change, not just the left. It takes a lot more people to blockade the motorways, and bring Fr. to it's knees, with their lorries, than purely the left wing.

There are, of course, some things wrong, but on the whole we like the fact that Fr seems to care about it's people. It's not so money grabbing as Britain.

I thought it was interesting that Macron said, in an interview with the BBC, that the EU needed reforming if France was going to stay in. To me, that sounds as though he's reaching out for the less militant le Pen vote (or Fillon's).

Would give a great deal to be a fly on JCJ's wall at the moment!

ppeatfruit do think so? I suppose it depends who you're comparing to. I don't think the French are backward looking in the way that people in the UK population often are (ie harking back to colonialism).

Organised protest in France tends to involve the young, the far left, and special interests (eg farmers). It doesn't take that many protesters to bring a motorway to a halt, or to dump a pile of manure in front of the prefecture building.

(I'm not anti-protest btw - I think it's good that the population isn't supine. But it can halt change even when change is quite widely supported.)

I don't think people in the UK are harking back to colonialism anymore than people in France are. The overwhelming majority of people want a steady job, a secure place to stay and to bring up their children in peace.

The problem is Macron doesn't just want to make it easier to hire he also wants to make it is easier to fire as well. Many of his labour reforms sound similar to those of the Conservatives in the UK in the 80's and 90's and they did not make Britain a happier and more cohesive society if anything quite the opposite.

Interesting article in the Guardian.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/01/emmanuel-macron-french-voters-marine-le-pen