Today's presidential election in France - the basics

LOL: Mélenchon is refusing to concede. He is in 4th place. What a nut. LOL


And:

German TV (ARD) is reporting that where other candidates spent a lot of time at their campaign HQs and gave some nice speeches following the projections, Le Pen did not even stay at hers for 3 minutes. In and out and she was gone. LOL.

 

Sure.

Look at Sweden's SD, they're very different from Le Pen, while both are nationalists, and both want to reduce immigration, SD is way further on the left on the political spectrum than the continental right wingers.

Then there's Norway's Center party. More national conservative, but still, partly nationalists. These guys are nowhere near as focused on immigration as a lot of other European nationalists, but more focused on self sustained agriculture and protection of rural areas. They've been in coalitions with social democrats and socialists the last times they were in government.

Nationalists differ according to countries, since nationalists generally are about their respective nation states.

Nationalists from historically and culturally peaceful (or weak) nations haven't got anywhere near as hostile rhetoric and divisive policies as the ones from former empires.

I'm not seeing Icelandic nationalists forming lynch mobs anytime soon, and that's one of the more nationalist cultures in Europe.

German, French and British nationalists though, those I'm wary of.

 

He didn't refused to concede, he said to wait that all votes were counted. He decided to not give any vote indication to his signers. He did a really good campaign, the poll started to give him 6 to 8 %, he ended at almost 20 %. He did the best progression.

 

Semi-Final results:



Macron +2.5%

 

Yes, the BBC keeps referring to Marine as 'extreme right', the idea being to make the waverers who might be thinking of voting for her back off. The French and the Brussels establishment elitists really are running scared, and I expect all the national broadcasters of the EU member states are hyping up the 'extreme right' thing for the same purpose.

 

This is the "electoral map" of last night's first presidential election in France (the second will be the runoff on 7 May):



Sure looks like a general geographical East/West divide to me, at least for now. Macron won the electoral districts in the North-Central-East where Paris is. Le Pen won most every electoral district either neighboring another nation (Benelux States, Germany, Italy, the exceptions being Spain and Switzerland) and she also won coastal areas where immigrant boats would likely show up. Macron on the other hand won areas that are facing the Atlantic Ocean. Of course, the map does not show the margins, so some of this without color gradients might be a little bit deceiving, for instance, the one district in the area of Paris, Seine-et-Marne (77):

Election présidentielle 2017

In that district, Macron won by only +0.28% (similar to Clinton's win in New Hampshire in 2016).

But no matter how you look at it, the current ruling party, the Socialists, Hollande's party, took a huge beating last night. Now only that, their traditional counterweight in French politics, the Gaullist Republicans (Fillon) also took a massive hit and it is a sign of how dangerous they both view Le Pen to be when BOTH, on election night, throw their support to an independent and frankly, untested candidate.

Interesting times in France.

 

The world is changed:
I feel it in the water,
I feel it in the earth,
I smell it in the air...
Much that once was is lost,
for none now live who remember it.

 

What is rather impressive is that the traditionnal right candidate François Fillon was first in really few parts. At the beginning, the victory was announced as almost "given" for him.

 

I think if you are polling 1/3 of the electorate, you are as centrist as the next guy polling 1/3 of the electorate.
Or as extremist for that matter.