French elections

If Le Pen beats Macron, the once-unthinkable will be all too real

A win by the leader of the French far right would see a leading European nation select a president emphatically opposed to globalization and integration, friendly to authoritarian Russia and tethered to a party, the National Front, that is steeped in a history of neo-fascism, extremism and bigotry. It could prefigure the dissolution of the European Union, trigger new economic chaos and hammer home the last nail in the coffin of an already ailing liberal order.

A Le Pen victory “means the collapse of the E.U., because the E.U. without France doesn’t make any sense,” Gerard Araud, France’s ambassador in Washington, said in a conversation with Today’s WorldView earlier this year. “And it means the collapse of the euro and a financial crisis, which will have consequences throughout the world.”

French elections

Does Le Pen have a chance of winning French presidency?

Marine Le Pen does not even need to go above 50% in the polls to become president, according to one expert, as long as Macron voters stay away in big enough numbers.

All she needs is to advance a little more in the polls, and this is how she could do it.

"If she gets 42% of the vote, which isn't impossible, and Macron gets 58%, normally she loses the election," physicist and Sciences Po political expert Serge Galam told RMC radio.

"But if 90% of people who said they would vote for Le Pen do it, and at the same time only 65% of people who declared they would vote for Macron actually do it, then it's Marine Le Pen who wins the election with a score of 50.07%."

French elections

Political correctness is ruining our strategy to defeat terrorism

Read even a few lines in any American or European elite media outlet and coverage of the attack quickly morphs into worries about its impact on the first round of presidential voting.

Will it strengthen the candidates who propose a stronger hand on terrorism? Will voters abandon the candidates who say unchecked Muslim immigration and refugees pose no threat to public safety?

Heaven forbid. The implicit conclusion is that it’s better to pretend that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism and suck up the slaughter.

With many on both continents more afraid that French hard-liner Marine Le Pen will become president than they are of radical Islam, the establishment once again looks both clueless and feckless. It never learns.

French elections

In France, If Le Pen Cracks 30% 'She Could Win It All'

France's presidential election on Sunday promises to rile a lot of people.  Depending on where they sit on the ideological spectrum, political junkies will blow a fuse. Wall Street, meanwhile, will be preparing for the future of the euro.

Of the political noise, Salon.com serves as case in point, now wondering whether democracy has died (because their team hasn't won enough votes yet.) This is sort of like a Trump vs Hillary II, starring nationalist Marine Le Pen as Trump and establishment candidate Emmanuel Macron as Hillary, for lack of a better candidate. In the market, odds gamblers at PredictIt.org have Le Pen getting the most votes in the first round. If she gets over 50% -- a shocker -- there will be no run-off scheduled for May 7.  If she gets over 30% of the votes on Sunday, however, she will go into May with massive momentum on her side.

French elections

Trump predicts deadly Paris shooting will have ‘big effect’ on key French election

A deadly shootout on Paris’s best-known boulevard darkened the final day of campaigning Friday in France’s pivotal presidential election, as President Trump predicted that the attack would help shape the outcome of voting Sunday.

Trump later told the Associated Press that the attack on French police Thursday night will “probably help” far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who has raised many of the same anti-immigrant and security issues that were pushed by Trump during his campaign. Trump said he is not explicitly endorsing Le Pen but that he believes she is the candidate who is “strongest on borders, and she’s the strongest on what’s been going on in France,” AP reported.

Trump also told the news agency that he is not worried about emboldening terrorists by saying that an attack can have an impact on a democratic election.

French elections

Le Pen Gains on Macron, Still to Lose Presidential Runoff

In the first round, Le Pen is set to win 24.5 percent of votes and Macron is expected to come in second with 23.5 percent, after losing 0.5 percentage points to far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon.

Melenchon is anticipated to come in fourth with 17 percent, trailing conservative Francois Fillon, who will secure 18.5 percent of votes. They are both likely to be eliminated after the first round.

French voters will cast their ballots in the presidential election on April 23. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of votes, they will return to the polling boxes to choose between two frontrunners on May 7.

French elections

What’s Happening in the French Presidential Elections

Ah, the French presidential election. Months of twists and turns. At one point, some thought it would be a showdown between former President Nicolas Sarkozy and current French President François Hollande. Months later, neither of those men are even in the race, while current candidates are nearly all embroiled in scandal, and there is plenty of uncertainty whether either of the two main parties will make it through this election as they exist now.
With the first round of voting on April 23, here’s a rundown of where each candidate stands (or stands set to fail):

French elections

French election: Marine Le Pen attempts global outreach

Le Pen reiterated past promises to “finish off the bureaucratic monster” of the EU and “do away with the EU treaties”.

She criticised France’s last two presidents for involving the country in “wars that are not ours, for interests that are not ours” in Libya and Syria. It was a mistake to break off relations with Syrian intelligence, Le Pen said, asking “How many attacks could have been avoided?”

She criticised French intelligence – as Trump criticised the CIA – saying French services were either “incompetent” or “served foreign interests, which is what one calls high treason”.

French elections

How Marine Le Pen could win the French presidency

What if voters, however, uninspired by the alternative to Ms Le Pen—whether François Fillon (centre-right), Emmanuel Macron (centre), or Benoît Hamon (Socialist)—decided to stay at home en masse, rather than uniting behind her second-round opponent? In order to gain an absolute majority on the most conservative assumption (9m votes), turn-out would have to collapse to around 40%. If Ms Le Pen managed the higher figure (14.6m votes), turn-out would have to drop to 63%, or some 68% if spoiled ballot papers were included. Since the Fifth Republic was founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958, this has never happened. Which makes a President Marine Le Pen unlikely—but not impossible. 

French elections

Gabriel warns of Le Pen winning French presidential election

Le Pen's National Front party "has set itself the aim of destroying Europe," Gabriel said in an interview for Thursday's edition of the German daily "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung."

"It has become a realistic danger," said Gabriel, a center-left Social Democrat.

If Le Pen does win the election, the idea of European unity would not disappear, Gabriel insisted. "But without France's engagement, Europe is certainly unimaginable in the long run," he went on. "First and foremost, the French would be the first to feel the effects of a so-called Frexit.

French elections

Paris Riots Could Color France's Presidential Election if Violence Persists

In an interview with Sputnik France, journalist Thomas Guenole predicted a change would occur in the dynamics of the French presidential election campaign if people continue to protest in the suburbs of Paris.

The interview came amid reports of ongoing violence in at least 11 communes in the suburbs of Paris, including Argenteuil, Clichy-sous —Bois, Nanterre, Drancy and Les Uli.

Instances of vandalism as well as attacks on journalists and police stations in these communes were preceded by the detention of 37 people following anti-police protests in the town of Bobigny in the Paris suburbs.

French elections

The French election is now Marine Le Pen vs a collapsing French establishment

Is France on the brink of a political revolution? Already, four established candidates for the presidency — two former presidents and two former prime ministers — have backed out or been rejected by the voters, and another, François Fillon, is on the ropes. The campaign is being taken over by outsiders, principally the Front National’s Marine Le Pen and a youthful former banker, Emmanuel Macron, while the Socialists have chosen an eccentric radical, Benoît Hamon. Should we welcome a shake-up in the cradle of European revolutions? What kind of shake-up might it be — socialist (the least likely), liberal with Macron or nationalist with Le Pen? Or can the outsiders still be beaten by an electoral system designed to keep them out of power?

French elections

Gay affair rumours in French election race: Favourite is forced to deny he is enjoying extra-marital liaisons with radio chief

The current favourite to become the next president of France has been forced to deny rumours that he is enjoying an extra-marital gay affair with a high-profile media chief.

Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old former economy minister, has been rumoured to be seeing Mathieu Gallet, the 40-year-old boss of Radio France.

This is despite Mr Macron being married for the last decade to Brigitte Trogneux, who is 20 years older than him.

Addressing the rumours head on during a presidential campaign rally on Monday night, Mr Macron said: ‘I am who I am – I have never had anything to hide.

‘I hear people saying that I have a secret life or something. It’s not nice for Brigitte. Because I share all my days and nights with her, she asks me how I manage it.’

On Sunday, Jean-Luc Melenchon, one of Mr Macron’s rivals to become president in May, used a hologram of himself at a rally in Paris.

French elections

Sex and the French Elections

The cover of Paris Match magazine late last year featured a handsome, 30-something man strolling arm in arm with an attractive blond woman in her 60s. The same couple were on the cover of a summer issue, holding hands at the beach, and on a spring edition dressed up for a state dinner.

As France gears up for presidential elections in April (and probably a runoff in May), this unusual pair could help prevent it from becoming the next country to succumb to xenophobic populism. He’s the upstart presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, and she’s his former high school French teacher, Brigitte Trogneux, now his close adviser and wife.

French elections

Far-Right Hopeful: French Election 'Choice of Civilization'

French far-right candidate Marine Le Pen blasted the "two totalitarianisms" of globalization and Islamic fundamentalism Sunday in a speech formally launching her presidential campaign that hit all the right chords for her National Front party followers.

Looking to translate her high early poll numbers into votes, Le Pen evoked a frightening image of France's future during her much-anticipated speech. The country, enslaved to the European Union and unrecognizable as French, risks losing its identity if the political status quo endures, she said.

"We are at a crossroad .... This election is a choice of civilization," she said, asking whether her three children and other young citizens would have the rights and cultural signposts of the current generation. "Will they even speak our French language?"

French elections

National Front is only force standing for Europe of sovereign states – Marion Marechal-Le Pen to RT

France's right-wing National Front party, the leader of which, Marine Le Pen, is running for the presidency this year, is "the only force" that can get France out of the EU and help protect it from radical Islam, politician Marion Marechal-Le Pen told RT.

"Currently, we are the only political force in France that promotes a sovereign project, based on [the idea] of Europe made up of national sovereign states," the National Front (FN) member said.

Marion Marechal-Le Pen added that "there are no other candidates" supporting the same ideas as her aunt's party, who can boast "a potential possibility to take part in at least the first round" of the French presidential elections.

French elections

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen launches presidential election campaign with pledge to 'give France its freedom back'

Marine Le Pen has launched her presidential campaign with a pledge to hold an EU referendum, ditch the euro, withhold free healthcare from “illegal migrants” and slash immigration.

The far-right leader of the Front National (FN) is hoping to capitalise on a scandal destroying the prospects of former election favourite Francois Fillon, who is embroiled in controversy over payments made to his wife.

But she faces renewed competition from Emmanuel Macron, the former finance minister who has created his own “En Marche!” party in a bid to reach the Elysee Palace.

French elections

In France, we respect election results – Marine Le Pen on anti-Trump protests & French vote

France’s National Front leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen told RT she believes the French citizens will accept the outcome of the presidential elections if they turn in her favor – without staging mass protests like those sweeping across the US.

RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij asked Le Pen if she expects a similar wave of protests that hit the US after Trump’s election to follow her potential victory in the French presidential elections. Tens of thousands of anti-Trump protestors took to streets across the US following his inauguration on January 20. Sister rallies were also held abroad.

“France is a democratic country, when elections are over, we respect the result,” Le Pen told RT, speaking on the sidelines of her first conference as presidential candidate in Paris on Thursday.