The French GE ... voting starts Sunday. ??

Urmstongran

Best of a bad bunch it seems. Not much of an endorsement.

Mr Macron is the first sitting French president to have been re-elected for 20 years. He also now becomes the only president under the Fifth Republic to have been returned to office by direct universal suffrage while holding a parliamentary majority. (The Economist).

I'd say that's quite an endorsement. Modern French presidents have had a hard time getting re-elected for a second term in office.

Also this Dickens from the article I posted on the previous page.
"Macron won by 17 points, a margin greater than any the final opinion polls had foreseen last Friday. France has, for the second time, rebuffed the wave of destructive nationalism which engulfed Britain and the United States in 2016."

Honestly I don’t know why pollsters bother really. They were way out this time too. All that money & ‘expertise’. Might as well consult the tarot cards.

Are you disappointed?

I don't see how they were "way out". A Macron win was forecast by every poll, every time.

Urmstongran

Honestly I don’t know why pollsters bother really. They were way out this time too. All that money & ‘expertise’. Might as well consult the tarot cards.

This is beginning to sound like sour grapes Urmstongran. I assume you would have prefered Le Pen?

Nope. Not bothered either way by the result. I only started this thread because I thought it was an interesting topic. And the opinions of grans living in France/who used to live there has been educational - thank you all. Sorry to disappoint those who assume I’m ‘far Right’. I just happened to observe how wrong the pollsters were (again).

But they weren't wrong .

True. But I think even the media backed the right horse so not exactly rocket science.
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I'm not disappointed in the result, it was a well fought contest. I am pleased that Le Pen had the strength of her own convictions, but was able to tone down her rhetoric over the years. I would imagine that had she won, she would have been in a better place to reconsider some of her more drastic policies.
I actually like the way she presents herself. Her father was from a fishing village in Brittany and I once taught at the college (in Vannes) where he was educated, along with a few other politicians. Before my time, of course.

You've just said the pollsters got it wrong, but then agreed that they didn't, then said it was obvious anyway who was going to win. Having started a thread about how the other candidate was surging ahead.

Joseanne

I'm not disappointed in the result, it was a well fought contest. I am pleased that Le Pen had the strength of her own convictions, but was able to tone down her rhetoric over the years. I would imagine that had she won, she would have been in a better place to reconsider some of her more drastic policies.
I actually like the way she presents herself. Her father was from a fishing village in Brittany and I once taught at the college (in Vannes) where he was educated, along with a few other politicians. Before my time, of course.

But she's a fascist. Courts agreed.

Why would she "reconsider" her more drastic policies? Quite the opposite, I should think.

I’m just trying to illustrate that pollsters have a huge margin of error is all. To be honest I don’t set much credence by them after Brexit. And Trump.

It's interesting that you set your standard by the two most manipulated - both within and without the countries involved - votes in modern times.

Volver I think Le Pen would have had to review the party's strategy, as do many politicians who come to power, but we will never know.

Mamie

Also this Dickens from the article I posted on the previous page.
"Macron won by 17 points, a margin greater than any the final opinion polls had foreseen last Friday. France has, for the second time, rebuffed the wave of destructive nationalism which engulfed Britain and the United States in 2016."

France has, for the second time, rebuffed the wave of destructive nationalism which engulfed Britain and the United States in 2016.

As a teenager In the late 50s, before I'd ever set foot on French soil, I was obsessed with the 'New Wave' (“Nouvelle Vague") movement in French cinema. I had this romantic idea that the French all sat outside cafés in Montmartre dressed in jeans and jumpers, drinking coffee and smoking Gauloises cigarettes, earnestly and endlessly discussing politics.

Of course, it wasn't like that - but I do think the French are more 'engaged' in the political life of their country than we are, in ours. Which to an extent might explain both the surge in nationalism, and the rejection of it.

We're all familiar with the public's reaction to its government's unpopular policies, recently and historically.

By contrast, we seem to have lost the political impetus of the 60s. Although the huge (and ignored) turnout to the march against 'Blair's war' and the anti-Brexit one in central London in 2016 (also largely ignored by the 'meeja') were an impressive testament to political engagement. But, we - so many of us - are now suffering the culminating effects of previous austerity and the current abominable hikes in energy prices coupled with the ever-rising cost of living... yet, we do nothing except complain on social media sites, blaming each other (for the political stance we've taken) for the crisis instead of holding the government to account. A government which has the power to mitigate the effects of global energy price increases. And so we are almost casually, desultorily, sliding into the ever growing popular nationalism that France has rejected.

I think there are two imortant things Dickens.
One is that yes politics is a more serious matter in France and secondly French "miserablism". "We will complain about him, then vote for him."
www.tomforth.co.uk/miserabilism/

Obviously the Tom Forth article is from a year ago, but still holds true I think.

Mamie I think also that introducing philosophy to children of school age in France makes them far more politically aware. I don't just mean the Rousseau stuff, but the broader societal questions like immigration and climate change. Teaching philosophy helps the children to ask questions of themselves and they develop a better understanding which shapes them for the future.

Dickens started me thinking the above.

Increasingly I'm convinced that we just shouldn't ask the French anything in polls. Just give them some choices and ask them to pick the least awful. That's their preference really.
For you Urmstongran from the article Mamie (thank you) posted. Just like we said! C'est la vie and all that.

Macron is now the most senior politician in the EU, and will undoubtedly take on the role of strengthening the union towards greater independence from Russia, China and USA military aid.

volver

You've just said the pollsters got it wrong, but then agreed that they didn't, then said it was obvious anyway who was going to win. Having started a thread about how the other candidate was surging ahead.

Yes I am mightily confused too

Oh thank goodness the French people saw sense and stuck with Macron. Quite a frighteningly large minority for Le Pen,though

I also think you have to factor in the French attitude to protest, ingrained since the revolution and in every century since then. I was in Paris in 1968 and have never forgotten what it was like.
So you protest, block roads, man barricades and strike. This is considered a fundamental right, fought for and won in the blood of the birth of the Republic.
Then after you have done that you do not roll over, but you may accept a compromise.
France like most western countries has a problem with post-industrial decline. The jobs that sustained the traditional working class, steel, coal, shipbuilding have gone. The passion for equality remains. The poor and the dispossessed turn their anger on the political class and where populism reigns and the press is complicit they vote for a joker.
Fortunately France has a tradition of political debate and the jokers get exposed.