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Far-right Le Pen closes in on Macron ahead of vote

  • 09-04-2022 1:00am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 578 ✭✭✭VillageIdiot71


    If Marine Le Pen manages to get a little less than half of the votes in the final round of the French election, will she be still be "far" right?

    Does the term "far-right" not mean at the fringe of mainstream opinion?



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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,203 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    Does the term "far-right" not mean at the fringe of mainstream opinion?


    No, it doesn’t. The terms either far-right or far-left are political positions based upon political views. They’re not based upon the people who hold those views. So Ms. Le Pen is, and would still be considered far-right even if she were to win the Presidential election, because the designation is based upon political views, not the person who holds them.

    Even in the article you should be able to see the difference between right, and extreme right, given the way it is explained that Ms. Le Pen holds more moderate views in terms of immigration and EU membership than those of her rivals, also far-right -

    France's far-right leader has worked hard over the past five years to win votes like Sophie's, softening her rhetoric and presenting a more moderate, "electable" image. 

    She still promises strict limits on immigration, a "French-first" policy when it comes to housing, jobs and benefits, and a ban on the Muslim headscarf in public places. But she has also dropped her plan to leave the EU, and has emphasised her personal life as a single mother who breeds kittens.

    Ms. Le Pen is acutely aware that breeding kittens gains her more kudos on social media than breeding immigrants.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,033 ✭✭✭✭Richard Hillman


    Macron pretty much implemented everything that Le Pen was proposing in the last election bar distancing from the EU. He's basically just the friendly face of Marine Le Pen but but not very friendly.



  • Registered Users Posts: 36 Mr.KarateII


    He only did it to save himself. He came out to the EU flag and National Anthem when he won the Presidency. That's not the act of someone who loves their Country and has the best intentions in mind for it.



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,812 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    "French far-right party National Rally is attempting to prevent the circulation of 1.2 million election pamphlets featuring leader Marine Le Pen shaking hands with Vladimir Putin, according to local reports.

    The eight-page leaflet includes a picture of the Russian president meeting Ms Le Pen in Moscow in 2017, together with the caption: “A woman of conviction.”



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,453 ✭✭✭sam t smith


    A picture of any politician shaking hands with Putin means nothing. Macron met him recently and has had multiple calls with him since. Only reason they didn’t shake hands on that occasion was due to Covid.

    Put “macron meets putin” into your preferred search engine and you will find plenty of images of them shaking hands across different events.



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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,812 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    Its not just a picture, its an election leaflet that she wanted to be part of her campaign. Because apparently she's like Putin



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,362 ✭✭✭landofthetree


    Targeting a working-class core vote, nationalist-populist Rassemblement National (National Rally) leader Marine Le Pen has a more statist economic platform than her far-right rival. She wants to intervene to set prices, give out subsidies to prop up faltering sectors of the economy and set up a French sovereign wealth fund to invest in strategic sectors.

    Le Pen also favours replacing the current property tax with a wealth tax directed at the rich, totally exempting primary residences. Keen to attract the youth vote, Le Pen wants to get rid of income tax for workers aged under 30 “so that they stay in France and start families here”.


    Lots in common with SF. She also hates free trade. SF have voted and opposed every free trade deal the EU has agreed to.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,027 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    Of course the French President meets and talks to the Russian one. That a bit different to a party leader.

    Also her 2014 campaign was funded by €11 from a small Russian bank with heavy ties to the Kremlin



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,113 ✭✭✭Augme



    Marcon is the President of France. It's his job to meet other countries leaders and states people.


    Marie Le Pen wanted to meet Putin becusse she's a fan of his and wanted to meet one of her political idols.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,477 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    I think most of the posters in current affairs would be delighted if she won, you saw how popular Trump was with the many anti-wokesters on here.

    Would be awful news for Europe and the EU. She's pals with Putin too, the last thing we need is for our politicians to be on his side, Russia influenced Brexit and that has tested the EU this will just make us more and more unstable. Hope to f**k she doesn't win, will be a dark day for Europe.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,474 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    I can see why she is doing well. Macron is a pompous arse, bit like a French version of Leo. The cost of living is hammering ordinary citizens allover Europe and I believe she is tapping into that anger. So many voters will say “why will I vote for more of the same”? Time europe woke up to its citizens instead of clobbering them at every opportunity. Or else we are going to see a lot more Le Pens and Orbans.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,404 ✭✭✭✭BorneTobyWilde


    It's a label the leftists use to beat someone '' far right''

    Is Boris Johnson far right? Is the Republican party in US far right?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,474 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    Left vs right had been nicely framed for them as a “good vs evil” standpoint.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 923 ✭✭✭Everlong1


    Eleven euro? I've heard of campaigns being run on a shoestring but that's pushing it a bit.



  • Registered Users Posts: 36 Mr.KarateII


    Whoever said "Conservatives just think you're wrong. Liberals think you're evil." hit the nail on the head.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 622 ✭✭✭J_1980


    She’s not “far right”.

    economically she’s actually quite on the left (lowering retirement age, higher pension, higher corporate taxes, nationalisation etc)

    she’s just anti open border and 3rd world immigration. Mette Frederiksen in Denmark and their centre-left have not too dissimilar a position (just more moderate). And no one calls her “far right”.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,796 ✭✭✭✭Strumms


    She’s doing well because about 61% of French people are either committed to supporting Frexit or contemplating it.

    in 10 years the population of France has grown by around 2 million people.

    in 20 years the population of France has grown by around 6 million people.

    the key driver is immigration.

    that is unsustainable….completely at odds with a fair and decent quality of life for French taxpayers and citizens.

    get on a bus, metro, RER in downtown Paris and even off peak you’d do well to get a seat nowadays…

    they have been attacked by people they tried to help, ie. The Charlie Hebdo attackers as one example….



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,343 ✭✭✭OneEightSeven


    Young people favour Le Pen, while pensioners favour Macron. I've never seen opinion poll stats like that before. +55 is usually your Brexit/Donald Trump demographic.




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,474 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    France won’t leave the EU but it’s obvious there are major issues surrounding migration and the overall French economy. Again that’s why Le Pen is doing well. Like it or loathe she appears to be listening to peoples concerns. Trump won in 2016 on something similar



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,901 ✭✭✭✭Kermit.de.frog


    This is inevitable consequence of failed policies, not just on immigration or standard of living or social issues but the whole EU project.

    Assuming she loses this time I find it difficult to see her or a successor not winning next time.

    The bubbling dissatisfaction is reaching the surface now. Not just in France.

    The worries and resentments are being seen in politics around Europe.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    The French and German response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine should be another nail in the coffin of the Social Democratic Project for a Federal Europe.


    Theres a view that Zemmour running this year was essentially laying the ground for Le Pens estranged and more outspoken niece to run in the next election, assuming her Aunt loses this time out, which she probably will, despite the close race.



  • Posts: 6,192 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Actually googled her policies...much more mainstream than her father


    But her plans to de-islam france would be a concern as they have a large muslim pop with generations(who havnt been treated well under macron),solution here-havnt a clue,but they need find aone way to improve their lot,not further alienation..


    But anyone opposing free trade,is gonna walk in right now (and rightly so,people realising it deosnt work)think she could possibly pull it off.....the pamlets showing someone snapped with putin,is so cynical,it near defies definition



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,719 ✭✭✭✭Geuze



    I don't get it.

    Young people aged 18-35 in Ireland are leaning towards socialist parties, e.g. SF, SocDems, etc.

    I suspect in the UK, the Labour party is stronger among 18-34 than Conservative.

    Yet this poll in France has them leaning towards a right-wing party?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,719 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    Side point.

    I have not analysed it, but I suspect media like RTE and the IT always preface the name of this politician with "far-right"

    Here is an example:

    https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2022/0409/1291361-france-election-latest/


    Yet, do they use the same language when mentioning RBB or Paul Murphy?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,901 ✭✭✭✭Kermit.de.frog


    The reason is obvious though. France is far further down the road of mass immigration than we are.

    It's younger people in the Labour market that are at the coalface. They see it, they are worried about the future. They are worried about their communities. They see social instability.

    Poorer ghettoised parts of Paris and other cities are like a war zone every night of the week.

    The exact same is going to happen here. Like in France initially you'll have liberal voting on these issues.

    But as the years go by and the consequences become clearer and clearer the exact same shift to the right will happen here.

    It's just a question of how long.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,996 ✭✭✭✭Spanish Eyes


    Marion Marechal is one to watch in the future. Of Le Pen stock only much further to the right. Doesn't have Le Pen in her name either.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,796 ✭✭✭✭Strumms


    All our mainstream parties here are pretty centre. A step or two to the right or left. Sinn Fein have an illusion of being left but if they ever see power you’ll see democracy and law and order fade to black….

    life here and indeed France and crying out for good centre left leadership.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,474 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    Maybe they've had longer in France to see what a failure Socialism is? Youth employment is a chronic issue over there as the heavily regulated labourforce makes it unattractive to hire staff.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,190 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe



    Not the biggest fan of Macron, but Le Pen is the consummate right-wing populist, constantly reinventing to get votes. Also it's no secret Putin would love to see her get in. The predicted super low turn-out could turn up a nasty surprise.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,723 ✭✭✭seenitall


    I hope she doesn’t win, and I don’t think she will. The timing of these elections is not doing her any favours and that’s before we get to the Putin photo pamphlet. I see her as having been off the boil for a while. She’s just a simple politician, I don’t think she has many answers or many aces up her sleeve… the issues that she wants to address in France will eventually be addressed by someone else, by which time she will be a political hasbeen. There are only so many times you can be the also-run in a presidential race before you find yourself on the wrong side of the political momentum.

    I may be wrong but - that’s my 2 cents.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I'm lost on how it would be better to have a person who is millions of euros in debt to Russia.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,429 ✭✭✭nigeldaniel


    France under Le Pen would be a tough cookie to bite on. I can't quite understand Le Pen myself, she seems to go with where ever the vote is. One minute far right the next she could just as easily be far left. She is a strange type of politician and the type of politician that is catching on everywhere in the world. Suck up to the poor and underclasses, then the next day sucks up to the hardliners on the fringes of extremists. Her Putin links go back to her Dad who started getting funds from Russia so she is stuck with that. Without lots of 'mula' one cant run any kind of political party.

    Dan.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr




  • Registered Users Posts: 578 ✭✭✭VillageIdiot71


    She's a grand looking young wan.

    She certainly has developed, which to an extent is why I started the thread. For what it's worth, I don't think someone can be "far right" if they've captured a chunk of the political mainstream. There is a disconnect in politics - and that disconnect IMHO is partly reflect in the way that commentators place their filter. So Le Pen is far right, compared to where we'd like moderate right to be - rather than where it actually is. Which is nostalgia, not analysis.

    I think you are also right to point to Le Pen looking to pick up left votes, from folk who feel their traditional left values are not being pursued by their traditional parties. Don't folk say this was also a feature of the last British election? Farage's party (can't even remember the name of it now) was attractive to traditional Labour voters, to an extent that (under their first past the post system) delivered a number of previous safe Labour seats to the Conservatives.

    Only pause for thought is why does it take a candidate like Le Pen to articulate policies that are attractive to both traditional left and traditional right voters? (And, while I know it's an acceptable answer to many, "because the voters are thick" unfortunately doesn't resonate with me.)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,125 ✭✭✭✭Danzy


    The modern left have a working class problem, in that they despise them but need their votes and have built their belief system around "working class politics".


    The stark class divide between the modern left and those they presume to speak for is incredible and only growing.


    Across most of Western Europe, the left is largely a dead end political force, 15 years ago they were regularly in Govt in many countries.


    It's a testimony to how much they have screwed up, how irrelevant and obnoxious they have become that they are on the electoral floor after a crisis of extreme free market economics.


    That's not going to change, too much of the left today are inward focused, elections are vulgar.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    The EU is in the French national interest. It has always been and continues to be.

    Like that room-tempreture-ale swilling gom Farage, Le Pen wants to change all that, because...reasons.

    I'm no particular fan of Macron, however if that's who the French choose to prevent (another) cornerstone EU country self-immolating and destroying the European political project for no good reason, I can well understand why they make that choice.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    Just as an aside, Le Pen's party took a loan from a Kremlin linked financial institution to bankroll her campaign in 2017. She's compromised.



  • Registered Users Posts: 36 Mr.KarateII


    There isn't a Politician alive in a major position and in a major party that isn't compromised.



  • Posts: 4,727 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    People all over Europe are frustrated after years of recession, pandemics, lockdowns and now huge inflation levels.

    It's normal to look for change when what you have isn't working.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 823 ✭✭✭Liberty_Bear


    Le Pens modus opeandi was to use left leaning language to appeal to a wide a demographic as was possible. Beware of the wolf in sheeps clothing as the expression goes. Le Pen has an agenda for a pure white ethno nationalist state just like her father. Thing is her PR is more slick than that of her father. We all want change but when the option you are left with is being electrocuted or having your head chopped off, you go for what is the less painful option. Even the normal centre right Le Monde cant stomach her (https://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2022/article/2022/03/31/presidentielle-2022-derriere-la-normalisation-de-marine-le-pen-un-projet-qui-reste-d-extreme-droite_6119942_6059010.html)



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    There's a world of difference being deferential to the local chamber of commerce because some members are donors, and taking a loan from a Kremlin bank and having a comicant anti-EU and pro-Russian foreign policy.

    I think it shouldn't need to be said you surely understand the difference in severity. You can soft peddle it if you want, but it's silly of you to do so.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,474 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    Agree- also the housing crisis is shared throughout much of Europe, though worse here. The carry on of most European governments throughout covid was beyond reproach- the likes of marcron was an arrogant twat, basically talking down to and dismissing anyone that had concerns or a different viewpoint to the punishment narrative.

    All this basically fcuked up the world economy and supply chains (delicately balanced and built up over generations)- the arrogance of western governments that they could shut these down and all would go back to normal (or Christ above “build back better”) on their say so. A monumental fcuk up of epic proportions. Yes, yes no wonder the likes of le pen are gaining traction and she won’t be the last.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,145 ✭✭✭✭JRant


    The left, particularly the intellectual left, have always hated the working class. Orwell wrote about this problem almost 100 years in his letters and it’s still as true today as it was back then.

    "Well, yeah, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man"



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    And on top of the loan, she appears to have a close personal relationship with Putin. And it probably goes further than is publicly known. She isn't in government, so there's absolutely no reason to have that relationship.


    Fyi, any politicians receiving loans from Russian banks is a red flag for any politicians. Russia has substantial leverage over such politicians.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    Just wondering lads, in the unlikely event of LePen winning the second round, what will be the excuse for the result being invalid this time?

    Obviously, biased media won't wash this time

    Russian interference?

    Facebook?

    Ads on buses?

    Might be an idea to agree in advance



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,007 ✭✭✭greenfield21


    It's not going happen I know...but I would like to see the brexit thread on here if she wins. The years of mocking the UK for being clueless and uneducated basically laughing at their decision and how we were all so better of. For France then to basically do the same thing a few years later ha.



  • Registered Users Posts: 36 Mr.KarateII


    If it wasn't for their propagandists in the media the Left would have lost their "Party of the Working class" label decades ago.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,474 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    Brexit and le pen are not quite the same thing. She’s moved away from frexit to a reform from within standpoint. France basically couldn’t afford to leave, it’s much more intertwined than the U.K. was.

    My own view is that the high point for euro scepticism has passed- however flawed the EU might be, it’s better than the alternative. Ukraine was a boost to EU unity in that regard.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,246 ✭✭✭✭Dyr


    Ah yeah, nothing boosted European unity more than watching the French and Germans hanging Ukraine out to dry. 😀



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 622 ✭✭✭J_1980


    Macron vs LePen in second round. Macron doing better than expected so likely to win in 2 weeks.

    at least all the socialist/left wing candidates were solidly rejected.



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