French presidential election 2017

[Traitorfish]

It kind of does though. Worker protection laws in France are what they are because at several key moments (1936, 1945, 1981 and 1997 most notably) the left managed to unite (with communists, socialists and radicals (which is a center left party)), win the elections and enact the necessary laws. Some of which were utopian in their times.

Well, in the first place, that's an electoral strategy, not a political program. An ability to work together to achieve certain concrete ends doesn't imply a specific end-goal- indeed, the very phrasing of your example, an alliance of communists, socialist and radical liberals, emphasises that it does not.

In the second place, the relative strength of France's worker protections does not imply socialism, and indeed, France in 2017 falls far short of the hopes of even the most moderate of 20th century socialists. Whether somebody wants to kill the rich or cooperate with them, the left's current stunted ambition of achieving grudging tolerance by the rich can only be a disappointment.

 

[innonimatu]

Might as well come out and say you are primarily motivated by vengence.

Personally I'm too well off to be motivated by vengeance. This system we have now is not too hard to game if you don't start disadvantaged. Even if you handicap yourself by seeking to behave ethically within it.
I am motivated by the harm I see it do to other people.

"First Hitler, then us"?

Y'know, there's a saying about the definition of insanity...

I don't thing we have any risk of having another Hitler now, for a number of reasons. I do think we risk having one in the not so far future if things don't change.
History does not repeat itself. What happens is that specific situations and episodes can be comparable, but you must look at all the circumstances around. This is not Germany 1932. Yet.

The problem at every point is handing off political power to somebody who swears they know best and has your best interest at heart. The solution isn't to find better people to assume political power, it's to stop handing over power to others in the first place.

You do understand why I believe that large political unities (large states) are inimical to any kind of democratic power-sharing? That has always been the cause of my opposition to the EU. All the other problems with it are symptoms or consequences of the abuse of power enabled by that distance between ruled and rulers.
We can never get rid of power relations within a society. But we can limit the scale of any possible abuse by limiting the distance between the possible offended parties and the offender. My favored solution is small states, the find a way to fine-tune the system of government (or whatever you favor for coordination or power-sharing) at that scale. Large states have systems of government that are structurally more inflexible, the kind of experimentation necessary to improve on it is impossible on states the size of the US, or that EU federal dystopia. If power was not "handed over" by their citizens to a handful of rulers, all the large states would naturally break apart: they were put together by war, and are held together by coercion and fear.
Even in this case of the UK leaving the EU the mask has fallen off, with public threats being made to do as much harm as possible to the country breaking away from the "union". And only the fear of a popular backlash in other countries (and the lack of an army!) preventing those threats from being worse, and being carried out.

 

[Bootstoots]

Might as well come out and say you are primarily motivated by vengence.

My read of inno's position here is that he's primarily motivated by Euroskepticism, not vengeance per se.

I mean, Europe has a situation where a bunch of very different economies are chained together with the same currency, thereby eliminating the natural balancing mechanism of devaluation that prevents trade surpluses and deficits from getting out of hand, preventing places from dealing with excessive deficits by inflation, and then on top of that having monetary policy be de-facto determined by Bundesbank strong-money fetishists.

This is all total lunacy, and it is going to keep slowly dragging down France, to say nothing of Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Greece, until something finally breaks. The only parties that are credibly advocating leaving the Euro are right-wing populist ones, and it does make sense to support them if someone cares more about this than about, say, what they're going to do with Muslims. Having learned more about France's politics through this thread, I hope Le Pen loses - but I can't say that inno's stance doesn't make any sense.

 

[AdrienIer]

Well, in the first place, that's an electoral strategy, not a political program. An ability to work together to achieve certain concrete ends doesn't imply a specific end-goal- indeed, the very phrasing of your example, an alliance of communists, socialist and radical liberals, emphasises that it does not.

In the second place, the relative strength of France's worker protections does not imply socialism, and indeed, France in 2017 falls far short of the hopes of even the most moderate of 20th century socialists. Whether somebody wants to kill the rich or cooperate with them, the left's current stunted ambition of achieving grudging tolerance by the rich can only be a disappointment.

It's not just an electoral strategy. It's a realization that the left as a whole mostly has the same desires, ie a society that takes care of its people through more equality. All three of those parties acknowledge that, for now (and this has been true since 1936), they all want society to go in the same direction. It would be pretty stupid to refuse to make an alliance because one party envisioned (but not anymore) a society where everyone is completely equal where the others don't, which has always led to no positive change.

Hamon's success signals the return of a real left. I think 20th century socialists would be exited at the idea of a universal basic income. The main problem currently is that there is not enough time for the left to unite before the election (Hamon is busy reorganizing the PS)

 

[Bootstoots]

I currently have a decently sized bet on this election, where I purchased 1302 shares of "No" on Marine Le Pen for the cost of 65 cents each. If Le Pen does not win the election, those shares would be redeemable for $1 each (minus fees). I believe that the 35% chance that PredictIt users have given Le Pen is overly inflated. The Brexit vote in the UK and the US presidential election have overly influenced the public's estimation of the far-right's chances. While there was polling error underestimating the far-right's support in both cases, the error was very small (something like 4% in the Brexit polls and 1-2% in the US presidential election) compared to what would be necessary for Le Pen to win in France (somewhere around10-15%).

In particular I am supremely confident in Le Pen's defeat if she goes against Fillon, given how the left has enacted a cordon-sanitaire against the Front National in previous elections. If, for example, the US Presidential Election had been between Romney and Trump, or the UK Election between Cameron and Farage instead of simply a question on Brexit, I am confident the more traditionally conservative center-right candidate would have won in both cases. Not that I believe Fillon would be much better, but that is besides the point. I would be less confident the run off is between Le Pen and Macron. The center-right has never been called upon to support the center-left to defeat the Front National, and as a person of supremely anti-conservative sensibilities I have no guess on how that bloc would vote. Nevertheless Macron leads Le Pen by at least 10 points in every runoff poll conducted so far.

Okay, I'm confident enough in Le Pen losing that I've bet heavily against her. Not quite as heavily as you because I'm an indebted grad student, but 500 shares' worth (400 at 65 cents, offer for 100 more at 63).

Fillon is still easily ahead of her in second-round polls, despite his scandal (this poll says 62%, another one says 57%) and Macron is steady in the mid-60s. Things could get more interesting if Hamon or especially Mélenchon somehow got through, but that isn't very likely and even then it isn't certain they would lose. Still, does anybody know of any Hamon-Le Pen runoff polls?

 

[AdrienIer]

does anybody know of any Hamon-Le Pen runoff polls?

None that I know of. I'd like to see some too

 

[AdrienIer]

Apparently there are none. The only recent second round ones are Macron/Le Pen, Fillon/Le Pen and Macron/Fillon.
The recent first round ones go as such :
Le Pen 25%
Macron 21-22%
Fillon 18-20%
Hamon 15%
Melenchon 10-13%

The differences are mostly between polls who include François Bayrou and those who do not, but (I didn't expect that) it doesn't make a big difference in Macron's numbers. Bayrou's presence seems to cost Fillon 2%, Hamon 1% and Melenchon 1%.

I don't think the current polls are super significant (at least the numbers, the dynamics are probably real). There are many right wing people who are candidates but who aren't sure that they'll be able to participate in the election. Bayrou hasn't decided if he'll run. The ecologist candidate (Jadot) is currently making a deal with Hamon but it's not done yet. There are too many uncertainties.

 

[dutchfire]

Even in the US presidential election, with the best and most well equipped pollsters and without the complications of horse race dynamics, polling typically misses by 3% or so. So I wouldn't make too much about the difference in these current polls.

 

[uppi]

Even in the US presidential election, with the best and most well equipped pollsters and without the complications of horse race dynamics, polling typically misses by 3% or so. So I wouldn't make too much about the difference in these current polls.

But you do not have to monitor 50 (okay, 10) states here, so with the same amount of effort you should get a significantly smaller error bar here (the French do just count votes, right?)

 

[Bootstoots]

As far as I can tell, the first round of this election will be a complete crapshoot. It barely matters that votes from everywhere count the same; no polling average anywhere in the world is reliably closer than about 3%, and polling difficulty goes up with the number of candidates. A race where five candidates are all polling double digits with nobody above 25% is completely unpredictable; all you can say is that it's more likely that Le Pen will be in the top two than anyone else, and of the top five Melenchon is the least likely to make the runoff. But it's just a slight probabilistic advantage, there's little certainty to it.

 

[innonimatu]

I think you're going to lose that bet, Bootstoots. I really, really don't see Hamon going to the second round. And the only hope of stopping a Le Pen win is Hamon quitting for Melenchon, which I have little hope of. All the other candidates are not "change candidates", and that is what is required now. Perhaps the french are not as tired as the americans (wealth inequality there is much less, despite all that Sarkozy, Hollance, Macron, etc have been trying to do), but they can see where the world was going, where Europe is going, and they don't want to go there.

There won't be a majority voting for a french thatcherite (and a crooked one at that), and there won't be a majority voting for a new Hollande. Le Pen will beat either Macron or Fillon, that is my guess now.
Fillon could have played the "new Chirac" role with some care, but he's too arrogant and too badly burned to pull that out. And Macron is the media darling meant to win... but people take exception at that, and I can see the left staying home rather than voting for him in the second round. The more is is painted as the golden boy, the greater that reaction.

 

[AdrienIer]

And the only hope of stopping a Le Pen win is Hamon quitting for Melenchon, which I have little hope of.

Why would Hamon quit ? He's just had 1.3m people vote for him in the primary and is ahead of Melenchon in the polls. The other way around would be more likely, but Melenchon doesn't seem amenable to it. Only the green candidate seems inclined to leave the race and join Hamon, which should happen in the next two weeks (discussions are under way and apparently going well).

Macron is the media darling meant to win... but people take exception at that, and I can see the left staying home rather than voting for him in the second round. The more is is painted as the golden boy, the greater that reaction.

It depends which left. The left that is used to vote for the socialists will go out and vote for Macron, as will all the center right. Melenchon's faithful might not vote for him en masse, I'll give you that. I think left+center +center right vs far right leaves Le Pen with little room in the second round against Macron. But of course anything can happen in a campaign, and Macron's already starting to do some missteps. I wouldn't bet on him being in the second round yet.

 

[Bootstoots]

I think you're going to lose that bet, Bootstoots. I really, really don't see Hamon going to the second round. And the only hope of stopping a Le Pen win is Hamon quitting for Melenchon, which I have little hope of. All the other candidates are not "change candidates", and that is what is required now. Perhaps the french are not as tired as the americans (wealth inequality there is much less, despite all that Sarkozy, Hollance, Macron, etc have been trying to do), but they can see where the world was going, where Europe is going, and they don't want to go there.

There won't be a majority voting for a french thatcherite (and a crooked one at that), and there won't be a majority voting for a new Hollande. Le Pen will beat either Macron or Fillon, that is my guess now.
Fillon could have played the "new Chirac" role with some care, but he's too arrogant and too badly burned to pull that out. And Macron is the media darling meant to win... but people take exception at that, and I can see the left staying home rather than voting for him in the second round. The more is is painted as the golden boy, the greater that reaction.

My bet is largely based on the December 2015 regional elections, where some socialists pulled out after the first round and backed the center-right. They did successfully get their voters to go along with it, with no real change (actually a marginal decrease) in FN's second-round vote share; they got only 27%. This is recent enough (at the peak of the migrant crisis, no less) that I am betting that similar dynamics will apply if either Macron or Fillon makes it to the second round. I'm sure there will be some abstentions and switches to FN so that their vote share does go up this time, but not enough to win.

I'm about 85% confident of that, so I was willing to buy at odds of 65%. It's possible that there actually has been a sea change in how French politics will work now that Trump and Brexit have actually happened, but it's not showing up in the second-round polls, which have been pretty steady with solidly double-digit margins for either Fillon or Macron. Polls can easily be 5-10 points off, especially almost 3 months ahead of an election. but they very rarely miss by 20 points in developed, frequently-polled countries.

 

[Kraznaya]

My bet is largely based on the December 2015 regional elections, where some socialists pulled out after the first round and backed the center-right. They did successfully get their voters to go along with it, with no real change (actually a marginal decrease) in FN's second-round vote share; they got only 27%. This is recent enough (at the peak of the migrant crisis, no less) that I am betting that similar dynamics will apply if either Macron or Fillon makes it to the second round. I'm sure there will be some abstentions and switches to FN so that their vote share does go up this time, but not enough to win.

I'm about 85% confident of that, so I was willing to buy at odds of 65%. It's possible that there actually has been a sea change in how French politics will work now that Trump and Brexit have actually happened, but it's not showing up in the second-round polls, which have been pretty steady with solidly double-digit margins for either Fillon or Macron. Polls can easily be 5-10 points off, especially almost 3 months ahead of an election. but they very rarely miss by 20 points in developed, frequently-polled countries.

Honestly right now I feel as if Fillon is undervalued. The 44-19 difference between him and Macron is vast given that they are polling between 1-2 points of each other in the first round.

 

[Bootstoots]

I think it's because people are speculating that his scandal might get worse, even to the point of being indicted or convinced to withdraw. Still, 19% is probably undervalued despite the scandal.

 

[AdrienIer]

The atmosphere around the Fillon campaign lately has been terrible. Some parliamentaries from his own party tried to talk him into giving up, and whenever he goes somewhere there are people protesting asking him to resign/reimbourse the 900k. Also right wing elected officials have had such a backlash from their constituents that they don't want Fillon and his team to campaign in their town. Which means that he cannot campaign properly and when he does the message that is propagated is one that reminds everyone of the scandal

 

[Kraznaya]

I would argue if he is still polling that closely despite all that negative animus around him, it is only a good sign for him. There's no pride in being a Fillon supporter right now, is there? So if there is a "shy voter" effect and he is only down by a sliver by Macron in the polls, he may well advance to the second round with the current data.

 

[AdrienIer]

Fillon's popularity is now at 22%. He's lower than most of the other candidates, even Marine Le Pen.

The main problem now is how he'll regain some points beyond the 18% faithfull he's mostly certain to get. And if he can't campaign and can't get a message out I don't see how he'll do that.

 

[luiz]

I reckon Macron will win. Fillon was completely destroyed in a very conveniently-timed prosecution (the kind of convenient timing we see in Central American Banana Republics or African "democracies"). France could definitely do a lot worse than Macron, given the choices here, but I doubt he'll decisively address the issues that really concern - and infuriate - the majority of Frenchmen. A Macron presidency means more or less continuing down the same road, and I fear that road will lead to President Le Pen in one or two election cycles (she won't win now). Maybe it'll be Marion Le Pen in 10 years.

As for Mélenchon or Hamon winning, yeah right. There's a bigger chance Mickey Mouse will be the next President of France.

 

[caketastydelish]

If Trump can win in America (followed by Kanye West considering running) France should run Daft Punk. And they should continue to wear their helmets while in office. That'd be badass

They should also issue executive orders through the robot voice. Nobody would defy them, and they would get a lot done.