I didn’t expect Jean-Luc Mélenchon to make it too the runoff, but I am still bummed that it’s going to be Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in the runoff:
In France’s most consequential election in recent history, voters on Sunday chose Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen to go to a runoff to determine the next president, official returns showed. One is a political novice, the other a far-right firebrand — both outsiders, but with starkly different visions for the country.
The result was a full-throated rebuke of France’s traditional mainstream parties, setting the country on an uncertain path in an election that could also decide the future of the European Union.
It is the first time in the nearly 59-year history of France’s Fifth Republic that both of the final candidates are from outside the traditional left-right party structure. Together, they drew less than half the total votes cast in a highly fractured election.
Even before the official tallies were announced, the political establishment was rallying behind Mr. Macron, warning of the dangers of a victory by Ms. Le Pen’s far-right National Front, though few analysts give her much of a chance of winning the May 7 runoff.
I am surprised that the scandal plagued Fillon got as many votes as he did.
Some things to note:
- Between Le Pen and Mélenchon, almost half of the electorate voted for explicitly Euroskeptic (Mélenchon) or explicitly anti EU (Le Pen).
- In some ways, we have the two worst candidates moving on to the next stage of the elections.
- Le Pen is a the face of a racist and arguably neo-Facist movement:
- Macron is arguably the most anti-worker candidate in the race. He is best described as, “Detached from the struggles of ordinary people, spiteful of unions and left-wing social movements, and enamored with the liberating power of free enterprise.” He is owned by the finance sector, which is bad for 99% of the population.
If I were a Frenchman, I would walk into the ballot box, and urinate in it during the runoff.
As an aside, I think that the French system with its imperial Presidency is showing itself to be somewhat problematic.
Perhaps moving back to a parliamentary system with a relatively high election threshold (10+ percent) or a first past the post constituency system would better serve the citizens of L’hexagone.