How the French Socialists "Bait and Switched" the French people into ensuring that another Socialist wins the Presidency.

Links: A. Macron, Le Pen to face-off in French Presidential Election.
           B. Sarkozy investigated over illegal campaign financing.


I followed the 2017 French Presidential Election very closely, as I was interested to see just how the powerful Socialist political machine was going to accept defeat.  Back in 2012, Socialist Francois Hollande moved into the Elysee Palace on a wave of optimism and confidence as a member of the Socialist Party (PS).  Although Republican President Nicolas Sarkozy continued to maintain a surprisingly high level of popularity, it wasn't enough to overcome an untimely investigation into illegal campaign funding.  Sadly for Hollande and his supporters, it didn't take long for the wheels to come off.  The reality is, the French economy can't support Socialist policy, and we all know how much the French enjoy despising the politician that they just put in power.  Bad policy begat high unemployment and economic stagnation, as the Unions tightened their stranglehold over Hollande.  Everytime it seemed that he was considering a bit or reform here and their, maybe deregulation and privatization to feed the economy, the leftists took to the streets to remind him who was boss.  Then the terror attacks started in earnest, with Hollande talking tough on one hand, but emasculated on the other by the EU's refugee and open-borders policy.  Hollande's approval rating was languishing somewhere around fifteen percent in 2016, when the PS big shots met to discuss the 2017 election.

The field of candidates for the 2017 promised to be full of heavy-hitters.  The Republicans could count on former President Nicolas Sarkozy and Mayor of Bordeaux Alain Juppe to fight for the party nomination, and far-left politician Jean-Luc Melanchon, who won eleven percent of the vote in the first round of the 2012 election, had announced his candidacy.  Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front (FN), was considered to be a candidate ever since coming in third with just over seventeen percent in 2012.  During the primaries, the Republicans surprised most analysts by shelving Sarkozy and Juppe and choosing Francois Fillon, who had served as Prime Minister from 2007 to 2012 under President Jacques Chirac.  The Socialists, who played the part of the lame-duck party to perfection, nominated Benoit Hamon from the far-left wing of the party.  In fact, Hamon was so left-wing that he resigned from Hollande's cabinet because he felt that Hollande wasn't being true to the Socialist agenda.  Once the primaries were complete and the campaigning started in earnest, it appeared as if Fillon was the man to beat.  The French voter seemed determined to sideline the Socialists, and Le Pen, because of her policies of ending refugee resettlement in France and moving France away from the EU, was considered unelectable.  But just as soon as Fillon settled in to being the front-runner, a scandal descended upon his campaign involving corruption and his immediate family.  When I think of the scandals and accusations of corruption in French politics, I can't help but marvel at the timing.  Jacques Chirac was hounded by such accusations, as was Nicolas Sarkozy.  Its not so much an issue of false accusations as much as it is a question of timing, and no doubt Francois Fillon wished that his troubles had been presented by the media earlier on, when the issue had initially been discovered.

At about the same time that Fillon found himself mired in accusations of corruption, another candidate was beginning to gain traction.  It wasn't Le Pen, or the erstwhile grumbling leftist Melanchon, it was Emmanuel Macron, who eschewed running in the Socialist primary against Hamon, and started his own political movement, self-named "En Marche" (best translated as "working").  Surprisingly Macron, a long-time Socialist politician who had served in Hollande's cabinet until 2015, started the political season with an experienced staff and financial support basically already in-place.  One would have expected Macron to run in the Socialist primary, but that was a dead-end.  It was obvious that even the resurrection of Francois Mitterrand himself could not bring victory to the PS banner in 2017.  Macron was not the kind of politician to knowingly sabotage his future by staying true to the party and losing, which Hamon seemed more than willing to do.  Macron, heretofore a dyed-in-the-wool Socialist, realized that the French electorate would not vote for a candidate of the left, so overnight he evolved into a self-labeled CENTRIST.  Since the arrival on the scene of his "En Marche" movement, I've tried to determine exactly what it means to be a Centrist, as far as French politics are concerned, and I've come to the conclusion that a Centrist is a Socialist who wants so badly to keep the left in power, that they are willing to adopt a new political description.  All Macron had to do was self-identify as a Centrist, and twenty years of involvement in Socialist politics would magically disappear.  The creation of the En Marche movement certainly helped, especially as it gave young voters something new under which to rally.  From the beginning, the French media adored the youthful, handsome Macron, whose policy positions seemed almost exclusively molded to support France's connection to the European Union. He didn't sound like a Socialist in his campaign appearances, but neither did he come across as anti-left.  With Fillon on the ropes, Le Pen spending most of her time fighting the continual media-driven accusations of anti-Semitism and bigotry, and Hamon never really considered a legitimate candidate, Macron had little difficulty moving to the front of the pack.

The French people were determined to provide a bit of suspense, even if Macron did end up moving into the second round with the highest vote total.  Le Pen earned a spot in the second round as well, finishing just two percentage points behind Macron.  Fillon started to get his act together late in the game, but it was not enough to make it beyond the first round.  He finished with almost twenty percent, and right on his heels was the far-left candidate Melanchon, with nineteen percent.  I was absolutely shocked at the accuracy of the French exit polling, which came within percentages of picking the exact totals for the top four candidates.  The Exit Polling also made it clear that Marine Le Pen has little to no chance of winning on May 7, conjecture which is strengthened by the fact that all the losing candidates except Melanchon, followed the now-familiar script by encouraging their voters to support Macron.  From my perspective, the "anyone but Le Pen" refrain is not very French, and runs the very real risk of antagonizing an electorate that values independent thinking.  Its dangerous to count out Le Pen, especially when you take into account that she won 46 out of a total of 107 Departments.  As for my strong suspicion that the Socialist political apparatus in France created Macron as a "fake Centrist" in order to keep the Socialists in power, I can offer no concrete proof.  I guess its possible that Macron had a change of political heart and no longer supports the Socialist agenda, but at this stage, it doesn't really matter.  As far as I'm concerned, though, if Macron wins as expected, France will be embarking on another five-year period with a president from the left. 

With the French presidential election days away, let's have a quick review....

When French President Francois Hollande was elected in 2012, he was faced with an unenviable task.  Unemployment was nearing ten percent, terrorism had become a normal topic of conversation around French dinner tables, and the economy demanded reforms that the French Unions were loath to accept.  Hollande attacked each problem by staying faithful to his Socialist philosophy, which, not surprisingly, made everything worse.  The French people love nothing more than to cheer a candidate all the way to the Elysee Palace, then wake up the next morning screaming for his/her head, because the problems have yet to be addressed.  Be that as it may, Hollande ends his one-term as arguably the most unpopular President in memory.  The Socialist Party (PS) candidate to replace Hollande, Benoit Hamon, never had a chance.  Instead, behind closed doors, PS movers and shakers were instructing the faithful to support one of two other leftist candidates.  Emmanuel Macron, a youthful, attractive former Hollande cabinet minister, created his own political movement "En Marche" (translated as "working"), which was picked up early on by the media, and pushed right to the front of the pack before he reminded everyone that he resigned from the Hollande government in 2015 (a move which earned him the "Titanic; last seat in the lifeboat" award for 2015). As the left let out a sigh of relief at the immediate success of "En Marche", an unexpected, additional candidate elbowed his way into the left-wing political conversation.  Jean-Luc Melanchon is an old-school French Socialist, whose policies and politicking remind older French folks of the deceased but still-popular former President Francois Mitterrand.  For the average French voter on the left, they must choose between the PS standard bearer Benoit Hamon, the youthful newcomer Emmanuel Macron, and the traditional, "familiar" Socialist, Jean-Luc Melanchon.  For the record, the once-powerful French Communist Party has endorsed Melanchon, but no one paid any attention.

The right side of the dial is much less of a headache.  Marine Le Pen of the National Front (FN) has been running for president since coming up short against Hollande in 2012.  Le Pen never had a serious chance of winning that election, even though she received the most votes in the first-round.  As was predicted, all of the other candidates urged their supporters to vote for the Socialist candidate
Hollande, and Le Pen was swamped.  Subsequently, Marine Le Pen made changes within the FN which are meant to make it appear more inclusive.  Le Pen took important steps to distance the FN from the ideology and pronouncements of its founder (and her father), Jean-Marie Le Pen, who seemed to hate everyone who wasn't white, male, Catholic and French.  She molded the FN to suit her political agenda, which focused heavily on lower-income Frenchmen,the working class, crime and immigration.  Le Pen should have little difficulty banging out twenty-five percent, which makes her much more likely to qualify for the second-round as opposed to the Republican candidate, Francois Fillon.  After surprising many by earning the Republican nomination by beating former President Nicolas Sarkozy and mayor of Bordeaux Alain Juppe, Fillon was crippled by a scandal involving his family and government money.  Everyday the scandal appears less and less significant, but when it first hit the headlines, the left played it for all it was worth.  But the Gaullist Conservative bloc in France tends to stay loyal, and lately Fillon has shown some life in the polls.  Analysts are trying to determine if he has enough gas to either join Le Pen in the second round, or topple her, and make the election an old-school right versus left affair.

With less-than one week to go before the election, Le Pen and Macron appear steady at between twenty-three and twenty-five percent each, with Fillon and Melanchon both inching up to roughly twenty percent.  As many as thirty percent of French voters are either undecided or open to changing their mind.  At the end of the day, the safe bet has Le Pen moving on to the second round vote on May 7, and her opponent being the next President of France.  No matter the opponent, polls show Le Pen losing the second round by at least fifteen percentage points.  French polls have a tendency towards being accurate, but if Le Pen manages to show thirty percent or more in the first round, I think she can win.

Media plays Kingmaker in the Netherlands

All eyes were on the Netherlands this past week, as the Dutch went to the polls to elect a new government.  Since Donald Trump shocked the political establishment in Europe as well as the United States by winning the 2016 Presidential Election, the Liberals and Progressives in countries from France to Austria have been petrified that a European version of Trump was waiting in the wings.  In January opinion polls in Holland had the Conservative, anti-immigration leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV) Geert Wilders, running even with Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his ruling People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).  As sometimes happens in politics, an unexpected "event" occurred a week or so before the election.  The Netherlands is home to over three-hundred thousand Turkish-Dutch dual citizens, and it just so happens that the Turks are preparing for elections as well.  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was determined to have certain ruling party government ministers campaign in the Netherlands, to round up votes for his Justice and Development Party (AKP).  From out of nowhere, Prime Minister Rutte decides to stand up to Erdogan and refuse entry to a Turkish politician who was traveling to Holland for the purpose of building political support for Erdogan's incumbent government. 

In a bizarre switching-of-hats, Rutte was able to look tough with regards to Turkish immigrants, just as the Dutch are heading to polls to elect a government.  In an even stranger flip-flop, the Dutch media, who had been painting Wilders as a neo-Nazi because of his opposition to the resettlement of refugees in the Netherlands, begin to praise Rutte for his uncompromising position regarding Turkish immigrants.  Why the about-face?  Because recent polls in the Netherlands had made it clear that the Dutch people were no longer supporting an extremely liberal policy with regards to refugees and immigrants.  Wilders has never wavered in his policies regarding the immigration issue, and in response, he has been vilified in the Dutch and European Press and accused of being both racist and out-of-touch with the mainstream of Dutch society.  Let me be clear- while I am able to use terms like "Nazi" as I write this blog post, that kind of language can get you into big trouble in Europe circa 2017.  No problem for the press; they just make use of more "polite" adjectives and phrases to paint Wilders as a bigot.  In the end, the EU political establishment was able to breath a sigh of relief.  Wilders and the PVV gained five seats in Parliament, and it appears that Rutte and the VVD will lose roughly eight seats.  But Rutte won the day, as he will be able to patch together a governing coalition and continue on Prime Minister.

Now that the Dutch have voted, all the attention turns to France.  This French presidential election is unlike any France has previously experienced, as the Socialist and Center-Right candidates seem to be finished even before the first round voting is complete.  Marine Le Pen, leader of the Far Right National Front (FN), is all but guaranteed to be in the second-round runoff, as she can confidently guarantee at least twenty-five percent support in the first round.   Unfortunately for Le Pen, it has proven exceedingly difficult for the FN to build on that percentage.  As for the other candidates, Francois Fillon of the Center Right Republicans, seemed to be the safe bet.  He had emerged from a bruising inter-party struggle with former President Nicolas Sarkozy and Bordeaux Mayor Alain Juppe with momentum and enthusiastic support, but a serious controversy derailed his candidacy early-on, and with outgoing President Hollande deeply unpopular, the Socialists are just about out of the race as well.  Who is left to run against Marine le Pen?  Emmanuel Macron, a middle-of-the-road politician who is the leader of a new, moderate political movement called "En Marche!", has moved into the catbird seat, and will probably be the next President of the French Republic.  As French politics go, Macron is middle-of-the-road, but in reality, he is left-of-center.  Most analysts give Le Pen no chance of winning, but recent polls have shown her staunch supporters have grown from the twenty-five percent figure to somewhere closer to thirty-five percent.  Once the second-round is set, the entire French political community will put aside its difference and support whoever runs against Marine Le Pen and the FN.  The French media, which has turned lampooning and insulting Le Pen into a daily exercise, will no doubt ratchet-up the accusations of racism, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia.  Outside of supporters of the FN, the press will be happy to lead the Crusade to send Le pen packing.  What is always so fascinating to observe is just how similar the media in Europe and the United States have become.

At one time, the press in western Europe prided itself on unbiased, non-political reporting.  The obsession with editorializing, at least as it is manifested in today's society, originated in the United States.  That's not to say that the British don't have a history of activist journalists; in fact, they've been an essential part of the British unwritten "checks-and-balances" tradition for centuries.  But on the continent, reporting, while at times quite sensational (Italy),  seemed to take very seriously its responsibility to present unbiased news.  The last two decades have ushered in quite a sea-change with regards to the media and press, particularly in France.  Analysts will argue that the European press has become more editorial-driven and political because of the rise in right-wing political parties.  Interestingly enough, the European political environment has seen an increase in far-left political activism as well, but don't expect to see the Green Party ever mentioned in the same breath as Marine Le Pen's FN.  As the new Left-oriented movement has been labeled "Progressive", the right-wing political groups have been called "Populist".  Analysts who believe that the Trump victory in 2016 will help conservatives and the Far Right don't really understand the current political environment in Europe.  Since mid-November 2016, after Donald Trump was declared the winner and it became obvious that recounts and other extreme efforts to rescue Hillary Clinton's candidacy were going to fail, the European media mobilized it resources to ensure that every media outlet and every newspaper stayed on message-that message being the deconstruction of Donald Trump as an honest, qualified, deserving President-Elect.  In December, Austrians elected Green Party candidate Alexander Van der Bellen over the conservative Nicolas Hofer.  Poor Hofer never had a chance, not after the Austrian media continually compared his candidacy to Donald Trump.  The media in Sweden, Italy and France have fallen in line, as any Trump allegation that fins its way across the Atlantic automatically becomes fact.  Much of this development is driven by a media on both sides of the ocean who were blindly enamored with former President Barack Obama, and Trump.  The European people share their media's love affair with Obama, and Trump is perceived as the "anti-Obama".  Any candidate who truly wants to win, self-identified as populist or not, had better think long and hard before praising anything related to the new U.S. president.  Marine le Pen has been supportive of Trump since he won the Republican nomination, so she is obliged to ride this out.   She isn't too concerned, though, as she knows the media would be lined-up against her candidacy regardless of her opinion of Donald Trump.

The media in the United States has lost all pretense of "fair and balanced".  With the exception of Fox News, the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and the upstart Breitbart organization, the Left enjoys an intimidating dominance in mainstream news sources.  For years, the media's liberal bias was well-known, but never admitted, as some of the crusty old farts who ran these organizations demanded that at least the claim of unbiased reporting must be defended.  Most of the old-school geezers have been swept-aside, and the press in 2017 actually embraces its bias in favor of the Progressive Agenda.  The media is smarter than we are, which explains why so many Americans are still skeptical about Global Warming, and why others want to own their handguns for self-defense.  The media feels an all-encompassing obligation to support what is on our best interest, since, in from their perspective, many of us act contrary to what is best for our country and our planet.  This attitude is alive and well in Rome, Paris, Berlin, The Hague, Vienna and London. As our world gets smaller, the ties that connect the U.S. media to their peers on Europe grow stronger, therefore it should come as no surprise that every disproved, absurd, tired allegation made against candidate Trump somehow made its way into the European newspapers as well.  The pesky allegations made against Hillary Clinton were treated by the European Press as politically-driven exaggerations and lies.  Whether its in Brussels, Oslo, Dublin or Prague, conservative candidates in Europe have an uphill climb, and unfortunately, the press will make sure that Donald Trump is more of a hindrance than a help.  I was not surprised that Mark Rutte managed to stay Prime Minister in Holland, but I wouldn't get too comfortable if I were in his shoes.  Being one-half French, my heart always brings me back to this year's Presidential Election in France and its consequences.  Everything points to a victory for Emmanuel Macron and "En Marche!", but yet, Marine Le Pen represents so many things which are sacred to the French people.  She is the decided underdog, and she has never been afraid of sitting down and breaking bread with the underemployed and struggling poor white families of Marseille, Bordeaux, Paris, Calais and Brest.  She has finally broken with her father's legacy, as she is more likely to be criticized for advocating French departure from the EU than she is of being a bigot.  Marine Le Pen sings loudly and boldly about the French language, French history and French culture, and this appeal alone could push her over the fifty percent mark in the second round.  But like Trump last November, le Pen must battle not only a room full of political opponents, but an aggressive, entitled media as well.