europe

RETVRN

I'll share a little trivia fact.

In France, to be able to run for presidency, you have to collect 500 sponsorships from elected people (mayors, MPs, etc...). In the last presidential election, Le Pen had A LOT of difficulties getting those sponsorships and it was widely expected that she wouldn't have them before the deadline. So, François Bayrou, the centrist politician who is currently our prime minister appointed by Macron, decided to tell the elected officials from his party to sponsor her until she reaches the 500 threshold because "it wouldn't be democratic is that very popular far-right person wouldn't be able to run". It's thanks to him that she was able to run and reach the second round of the election, and give Macron an easy win because of the mass of people voting for him only to prevent fascism from winning.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if our centrists tried to save her ass again.

nah, they'll elect that young right wing fuck, who has more correct opinions about ukraine

The left coalition (NFP) is already much more fragile than it was last year, especially given the Socialist Party's (PS) advances to the current government which especially angered Mélenchon's party (Mélenchon himself declared that the NFP was over when the PS initially started to attempt to court the government). But, on Mélenchon himself, the media demonisation campaign against him has been in full swing for years now and most French people are more scared of him and his party than of the far right purely because of that. In 2022 opinion polls for a Mélenchon-Le Pen round gave a victory to Le Pen, and same for Macron (with a larger margin); contrast this to 2017, when polls indicated that he would have won the second round had he passed the first round. And today his portrayal is even leagues worse than it was in 2022 (probably because the NUPES and then the NFP proved that he was still a relative danger to the neolibs); were he to get to the second round, I'd be incredibly surprised if he gets elected regardless of who he is facing.

LePen is further left than Macron at this point. Melenchon got smeared due to whole russiophobia and muh hamas thing has is making the rounds in Europe.

le pen is

I worry that all this will do in the long run is turn LePen into a martyr. Even when the left is totally out of the picture and the hogs trip over their own two feet, they always have a habit of drumming up a rallying cry against the left using themselves as a martyr.