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[ant_]

Headline article of this months' Economist.

Impossible to sum up the entirety of the article; I encourage you read it. Another worrisome election for the future of world affairs.

https://www.economist.com/news/brie...aped-countrys-politics-and-sidelined-its-main

This bonfire of the elites has left France with a slate of candidates all but one of whom were not considered serious contenders for any party’s nomination six months ago. One of them, Emmanuel Macron, a former Socialist economy minister, is a candidate without the backing of an established party but with a real chance of victory, another unprecedented development. Benoît Hamon, the Socialist Party’s candidate, is a former backbench rebel against his own party. The centre-right nominee, François Fillon, will be put under formal investigation on March 15th accused of abusing his office to pay unearned salaries to his family; nevertheless, he says he will fight on.

And then there is Ms Le Pen. The populist leader, who has run the FN since 2011, leads The Economist’s poll of polls (see chart 1). There is a good chance that she will come top in the first round of the election—again, something for which there is no precedent. (When her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the FN’s founder and former leader, got into the second round in 2002 it was as the first-round runner-up, with just 17% of the vote). For the other candidates the election has become a race to stand against her in the second round on May 7th, and the campaign a test of the ability of mainstream politicians to shape a response to renascent nationalism.

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the FN vote, though, is the faultline it reveals between the country’s cosmopolitan cities, at ease with globalisation, and those in-between places where farmland gives way to retail sprawl and a sense of neglect. Between 2006 and 2011, the number of jobs in 13 big French cities—Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Nice, Strasbourg, Rennes, Grenoble, Rouen, Montpellier and Toulon—increased on average by 5%. In France as a whole, jobs were lost. These dynamic cities, with their elegant pedestrian centres, tech hubs and gourmet food, vote for the left (Lyon, Nantes, Rennes), the greens (Grenoble) or the centre-right (Bordeaux). They are not immune to France’s feeling of being fed up; in April and May, many of them may opt for Mr Macron. But none registers a strong vote for the FN.

Around them, though, is what Christophe Guilluy, a geographer, calls “peripheral France”. This is the world of lost employers like the Lejaby lingerie factory in Bellegarde-sur-Valserine, in the foothills of the Alps, or the Moulinex factory in Alençon, in southern Normandy. It is a world where Uber, bike-share schemes and co-working spaces are nowhere to be found, and where people sense that globalisation has passed them by. It is a world where the FN is on the rise.

One is a sense that a great country, the cradle of human rights and the Enlightenment, has somehow lost its way. This is particularly obvious in economic terms. Since the end of the trente glorieuses, the three decades of strong growth that followed the second world war, it has been debt, rather than growth, that has financed the high-speed trains, the blooming municipal flower beds and the generous provisions for child care, ill health, job loss and old age that are the hallmark of France’s splendid public sector. French public spending now accounts for a greater share of GDP than it does in Sweden. But no French government has balanced its budget since 1974.
Over the past 15 years, there has been a particular décrochage, or decoupling, between the French economy and that of Germany, its closest ally. In 2002 the two countries enjoyed comparable GDP per head. Germany, under Gerhard Schröder, began to reform itself. France, under Jacques Chirac, didn’t. Today, Germans have 17% more purchasing power per person. Labour costs in France have risen faster than in Germany, deterring the creation of permanent jobs and undermining competitiveness. The country’s share of all goods exports between EU countries has dropped from 13.4% to 10.5%.

Legitimate worries about terrorism have supplied fertile ground for insidious identity politics. As the home to one of Europe’s biggest Muslim minorities, France is more alert than, say, Italy or Spain to hints of religious extremism. Moreover, the country has a pre-existing and unforgiving framework for managing religious expression—known as laïcité—which recent governments, fearing a threat to secularism, have tightened up. When this provokes a row—over Muslim head-coverings, say—it plays straight into Ms Le Pen’s hands; she has little trouble persuading voters that their values are under threat. France, she tells her flag-waving rallies, faces nothing less than “submersion”.

Ms Le Pen succeeds not because of the way her policies, which include a lower retirement age, more taxes on foreign workers and massive increases in spending on the armed forces, would tackle economic insecurity or the threat of terror (they wouldn’t). It is because of her talent for blending two strands of populism: anti-immigrant talk about values and churches, strong in the south, and anti-market discourse about jobs and the system, favoured in the north. On both counts, she can tap into French history.

 

[sugarhigh4242]

Funny how they blame the conditions that make Le Pen possible on social democracy rather than neoliberal austerity. I expect nothing less from a conservative rag like The Economist.

 

[7Th]

Thankfully, Fillon is on his way out so the nationalist piece of shit (redundancy?) won't make it to the second round.

 

[ant_]

Funny how they blame the conditions that make Le Pen possible on social democracy rather than neoliberal austerity. I expect nothing less from a conservative rag like The Economist.

Do you care to make the opposing argument? Or did you just come to air your grievances with a well-written and supported article?

It would provide value to hear your perspective rather than just calling them a 'conservative rag.'

 

[sugarhigh4242]

Do you care to make the opposing argument? Or did you just come to air your grievances with a well-written and supported article?

It would provide value to hear your perspective rather than just calling them a 'conservative rag.'

I did.

 

[Madness]

Thankfully, Fillon is on his way out so the nationalist piece of shit (redundancy?) won't make it to the second round.

Yeah it is looking tough for Marine Le Pen in the second round, but the thing is, you would expect her to poll higher than what we see in the polls as Brexit and Trump have shown that increasingly people are hiding what they really feel until they actually vote. But the fact an ACTUAL far right leader like Marine Le Pen would win the first round is crazy, and what does it say if she loses with still record numbers of votes and yet her popularity keeps increasing.

 

[hawk2025]

Do you care to make the opposing argument? Or did you just come to air your grievances with a well-written and supported article?

It would provide value to hear your perspective rather than just calling them a 'conservative rag.'

He did -- as usual, with zero evidence and no proper economic analysis.

He has a neoliberal-shaped hammer, and uses it to hit every fucking thing.

 

[Lord Frieza]

Yeah it is looking tough for Marine Le Pen in the second round, but the thing is, you would expect her to poll higher than what we see in the polls as Brexit and Trump have shown that increasingly people are hiding what they really feel until they actually vote. But the fact an ACTUAL far right leader like Marine Le Pen would win the first round is crazy, and what does it say if she loses with still record numbers of votes and yet her popularity keeps increasing.

Eh, I know this is what people say, but honestly, I don't agree. I feel almost like Brexit's polling numbers have become a myth. It was always shown as close from what I know, and while I realize Stay was away right up to the vote, there was always a possibility that Leave could still win. I don't think it was a situation like Trump where it was consistently being shown as a blowout for one side.

Trump is different, but I think it's worth noting that Hillary pretty much hit her polled numbers on the nose, more or less. That tells me that there was a lot of undecided voters and GOP voters on the fence about actually voting for Trump that eventually came over to his side. I don't know if there was really a lot of lying about it, since polls are anonymous in America anyway. I think there just enough margin of error within that group in enough places that it edged Trump to a win.

Not saying that says anything per say about the French election, but I don't necessary think we have to just throw out all polls now after Brexit and Trump. Brexit, especially.

 

[Condom]

.

 

[Nipo]

I did.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Prove your case, or at least that the economist is wrong.

 

[Funky Papa]

Here's hoping Le Pen gets dragged to court (and through mud) over misuse of funds.

 

[Coffinhal]

There's an OT for French élections if anyone is interested for further discussion http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1338863&highlight=french

Do you care to make the opposing argument? Or did you just come to air your grievances with a well-written and supported article?

It would provide value to hear your perspective rather than just calling them a 'conservative rag.'

Mélenchon is not even in the text and Hamon's name comes up only one time.

They know how to make a summary (like every good journalist or political science scholar) but don't forget that they have huge bias. A part of the analysis (electoral geography mostly) is a bit outdated too.

 

[G.O.O.]

Nicolas Baverez, a lawyer and commentator

A guy who writes for a bad magazine and who has been wrong more often than right*

“The historian in me is very pessimistic,” says Dominique Moïsi, of the Institut Montaigne, a think-tank, “because I know that these things can happen.”

A neoliberal think tank*

Christophe Guilluy, a geographer

Not a consensual one, mind you. He's not FN himself but his argument sure has helped them, on poor foundations

The bit about our economy could also be discussed. Not everything is bad but some points definitely need context.

 

[Zips]

Please don't fall for her bullshit France.

 

[Coffinhal]

A guy who writes for a bad magazine and who has been wrong more often than right*


A neoliberal think tank*


Not a consensual one, mind you. He's not FN himself but his argument sure has helped them, on poor foundations

The bit about our economy could also be discussed. Not everything is bad but some points definitely need context.

Yep.

The bit about economy is the more biased and several economists (neokeynesians mostly, and of course anyone from the "regulation shcool" (post-marxist economists) disagree with that opinion. But you won't here from them in The Economist.

 

[CadetMahoney]

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

That's pretty good never heard that one.

 

[Kayhan]

Looks like the French political class have failed France.

If the decline continues the Far Right will win at some point.

 

[darkace]

Macron is an actual neoliberal. Can people look at his policies for an idea of the ideology rather than throwing neoliberalism at anything vaguely resembling capitalism.

Also the economist is one of the best papers out there.