Belgian Press: Macron Has Between 63% And 64% Of The Vote

While French pollsters and poli-pundits are prohibited from providing "hot-takes" or preliminary exit-polls ahead of the closing of polls at 8pm local time, the Belgian press is not similarly constrained, and according to L"Echo, citing early exit polls, Macron would win the vote with between 63% and 64% of the vote, while empty ballots would represents about 10%.

Entre 63% et 64% pour #Macron et 10% de blancs et nuls #sondage sortie des urnes https://t.co/U1u9E7l263 #Presidentielle2017 pic.twitter.com/8y3MA9pXOS

— L"Echo (@lecho) May 7, 2017

The Belgian newspaper adds that, as noted earlier, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior, the participation rate in metropolitan France at 5pm amounted to 65.30%, the lowest participation rate in decades. It also adds that the abstention rate in today"s vote is expected to reach 25% to 27% on the day.

Still, as the Telegraph cautions, while it was thought that Mr Macron could build a larger voting base than Ms Le Pen - as he was expected to mop up votes in the second round from those who support mainstream Right and Left candidates in the first - it appeared last night that a large number of supporters for the conservative, Francois Fillon, and the far-Left Jean-Luc Melenchon stayed home on election day.  And a vast number chose to spoil their ballots or abstain at the polls - as many as 29% of voters, according to one estimate.

Furthermore, take such early forecasts with a grain of salt. As Bloomberg"s European analyst Maxime Sbaihi writes, "French authorities" warning: no "reliable" estimate can be made before 7.45pm. Don"t trust what you see before that."

French authorities" warning: no "reliable" estimate can be made before 7.45pm. Don"t trust what you see before that. https://t.co/MzchgBOqdj pic.twitter.com/XmGpkH6VNE

— Maxime Sbaihi (@MxSba) May 7, 2017

He also provides the following breakdown of how to read the final score:

How to interpret #Macron"s score tonight?

• bad < 55% < weak < 60% < fair enough < 63% < landslide < 65% < plebiscite

How to interpret #LePen"s score tonight?

• 45% > success > 40% > passable > 37% > meager > 35% > FN mutiny

* * *

Some other highlights: a timelapse clip showing a Paris polling station:

The Telegraph also reports that Libération newspaper says it is boycotting the electoral events of Marine Le Pen this evening - whether she wins or loses - in solidarity with other French and foreign media outlets who have been refused access to them.

The left-wing daily says it will not carry any coverage of the events, during which Ms Le Pen is due to make a speech after the election results are announced, because the Front National has refused access to the gathering in a park in the east of Paris tonight to about a dozen media organisations. "These anti-democratic measures, which are also contrary to the right to keep the public informed, must stop, as must the intimidation of journalists in (Le Pen) political rallies," wrote senior Libération editor Johan Hufnagel.

Path To Le Pen Victory: What Would It Take?

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Recent opinion polls for round two of the French election on May 7 show Emanuel Macron with 59-60% and Marine Le Pen 40-41%.

Le Pen is trending up from April 24 results that were as low as 36-37%.

Still, Le Pen has a long way to go. Can she close the gap? How?

French Election Polls

The above from French Election Polls on Wikipedia.

Results show the two candidates combined only got 45% of the vote in the first round. Apathy and distrust are strong.

Political Ambush

On Wednesday, April 27, Macron met with striking Whirlpool workers at a planned event in Amiens, Macron’s hometown. In a surprise political ambush, Le Pen showed up first and was greeted with cheers and selfie opportunities.

Macron Faces Hostile Crowd

The most recent poll show Macron falling below 60%. There may be more fallout from the ambush coming up. Even if one believes that support for Le Pen is a bit understated, picking up another 7-9% is a tough act to expect.

Close the Gap? How?

It’s possible Le Pen closes the gap, in a roundabout way: abstentions. Eurointelligence explains.

The researcher Serge Galam confirms what we suspected all along: it does not take much for Marine Le Pen to win if voters abstain. Galam looked into what it takes for her to win under different abstention scenarios. He starts with the vote intentions as suggested by the polls, 42% for Le Pen and 58% for Emmanuel Macron. Then, if 90% of the FN voters go to vote but only 65% of those for Macron, Le Pen would end up winning with 50.07%. For Macron the threshold to win is thus 65.17%. This threshold is even higher the closer the two get in the polls. Assuming Le Pen wins two points in the polls and gets 44% of voters intentions, then the threshold for Macron would be 70.71%. So for 2 extra points in the voters intentions for Le Pen the barrier for Macron to win rises by 5 percentage points. We know that the voters behind Le Pen are much more loyal and steadfast than the votes for Macron. Many backed Macron unenthusiastically to block Le Pen. Since the first round, there is a clear rise in aversion against Macron. The absence of a clear backing from Mélenchon and the hashtag #SansMoiLe7Mai on twitter give solidarity to those who consider abstaining, Le Figaro explains. Students from schools and universities mobilized yesterday for a ni-ni: a no to Le Pen and her nationalism, and a no to Macron as a “boss”.

Ni-Ni Mobilized, SansMoiLe7Mai

A ni-ni is “neither nor”. SansMoiLe7Mai translates as “Without Me May 7”.

Abstentions

An amazing 71-80% of those who supported Benoît Hamon are for Macron, with as low as 1% for Le Pen. But Hamon only received 6.36% of the vote in round one.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon received 19.58% of the vote while François Fillon received 20.01%. Those are the votes that will matter most. It is difficult to judge the likelihood of that combined 39.58% block of disenfranchised voters does indeed vote in round two.

Looking at the first set of polls at the top, somewhere between 17% and 29% of the electorate plans to abstain. The average of 22%, 29%, and 17% is 22.67%. Those abstainers are already factored into the 59-41% poll estimate for May 7.

Voting Intention Averages

• On average, 39.33% of Mélenchon supporters claim they will abstain. 39.33% of 19.58% is 7.66%.


• On average, 30.67% of Fillon supporters claim they will abstain. 30.67% of 20.01% is 6.14%.


• On average, 24.33% of Hamon supporters claim they will abstain. 24.33% of 6.36% is 1.55%.

Curiously, the combined abstainers from the Mélenchon plus Fillon plus Hamon camp is only 15.35% whereas the average overall abstention percentage is 22.67%.

That margin says suggests there is an extra pool of voters who intend to sit this out. Assuming Le Pen supporters are more enthusiastic, the extra block of abstainers must come primarily from those who voted for Macron but now intend to sit it out.

Determining Questions

1. Will enough weak Macron supporters turn up to vote?


2. Will the “ni-ni” campaign have an impact that does not show up in the polls?


3. Is there a pool of Le Pen supporters who simply do not tell pollsters their intention?


4. Will Macron’s Whirlpool gaffe be a factor?

To win, Le Pen needs to capitalize on Macron’s gaffe. She also needs low turnout and a ni-ni impact that affects Macron more than it does her.

This is an uphill battle, but possible, and more likely than most expect.

French Stocks Surge Off Technical Support After Overnight Poll

Nothing says existential fear for the EU like buying the f**king French dip on the heels of an overnight poll that simply confirmed expectations that the worst case scenario "Le Pen - Melenchon" second round was still a significant outlier. French stocks soared 1.7% - the most in 6 weeks - bouncing off the 50-day moving average.

We suspect given the massive hedge positions being laid out that this kind of volatility will be the new normal for the next week or so... 

Notice CAC bounced perfectly off the 50DMA

It was a broad-based rally, with banking stocks among top gainers: BNP Paribas +4.2%, Societe Generale +3.8%, Credit Agricole +3%.

CAC 40 is “taking centre stage and moving higher on the belief that Emmanuel Macron will make it to the final vote this weekend,” Michael Hewson, a market analyst at CMC Markets, wrote in a note.

Following are first-round voting intention estimates in Harris Interactive-France Televisions poll for the French presidential election. Changes from Apr. 13 are in brackets.

• Emmanuel Macron 25% (+1 point)


• Marine Le Pen 22% (unchanged)


• Francois Fillon 19% (-1 point)

And overall, Le Pen"s odds of final victory have fallen notably (below Fillon) according to Oddschecker.

Still, we all know what polls are worth.

Meanwhile, Europeans really don"t care...  

The European Commission’s consumer-confidence index for the euro area jumped the most in five months in April. The advance put the index at its highest since March 2015, matching the strongest reading since before the financial crisis. The latest figures were far better than economists had anticipated and mark another step in the region’s economic recovery for European Central Bank policy makers to consider at their meeting next week.

Europe Gets Its Doomsday Scenario

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

The rise of French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has made a lot of people nervous since, among many other things, she’s in favor of leaving the eurozone, which would pretty much end the common currency. But since polling has shown her making the two-person run-off round but then losing to a mainstream candidate, the euro-elites haven’t seen any reason to panic.

Here, for instance, is a chart based on February polling that shows Le Pen getting the most votes in the first round, but then – when mainstream voters coalesce around her opponent – losing by around 60% – 40%. The establishment gets a bit of a scare but remains firmly in power, no harm no foul.

Then came the past month’s debates in which a previously-overlooked communist candidate named Jean-Luc Mélenchon shook up the major candidates by pointing out how corrupt they all are. Voters liked what they heard and a significant number of them shifted his way.

(France 24) – In a presidential campaign with more twists than a French braid, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s sudden play to become France’s third man — or better — is shaking up the race.

With ten days to go before April 23’s first round vote, the colourful, cultured and cantankerous far-leftist has the frontrunners on the defensive.

Suddenly, the grumpy far-leftist — a showman in a Chairman Mao jacket who openly admired late Venezuelan populist leader Hugo Chavez — holds the mantle of France’s most popular politician. In the course of a whirlwind month, the 65-year-old Mélenchon surged nine spots to number one in weekly glossy Paris Match’s opinion poll. A full 68 percent of those surveyed hold “favourable opinions” of the far-left candidate, the poll by the Ifop-Fiducial firm showed.

On some polls, Mélenchon has now bypassed embattled conservative François Fillon for third place in a presidential race that will see the top two advance to the May 7 run-off.

An Ipsos poll on Tuesday put Mélenchon a half-point ahead of Fillon for third place in the race, behind National Front leader Marine Le Pen and the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron. With 18.5 percent, the far-leftist has gleaned 4.5 percent in just two weeks, with Macron and Le Pen tied on 24 percent.

Mélenchon wants to quit NATO, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and block European trade treaties with the United States and Canada. He promises a French referendum on whether to stick with the reworked EU he is pledging to negotiate or leave the bloc altogether.

Here’s a chart from the Washington Post showing just how tight the race for the run-off spots has become:

It’s still unlikely that both Le Pen and Mélenchon will make the run-off, but based on the above chart it’s suddenly possible. This would be the cultural equivalent of a Trump – Bernie Sanders race in the US, but with – believe it or not — even higher stakes because both Le Pen and Mélenchon would threaten the existence of both the euro and the European Union, the world’s biggest economic entity.

So it almost doesn’t matter who wins that run-off. Just the prospect of having one or the other in charge would tank the euro and set off a stampede out of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese bonds, possibly doing irreparable damage to the eurozone before the eventual winner even takes power.

To repeat the theme of this series, when you screw up a country’s finances you take its politics along for the ride.

In France, the right feels betrayed by open borders and excessive regulation,

the left by an unaccountable elite that always seems to profit at everyone else’s expense.

And both sides suffer from soaring debt at every level of society.

So if a fringe candidate doesn’t win this time around, the mainstream will just make an even bigger mess, raising the odds of a fringe victory next a few years hence.

Le Pen Faces Disaster In Election After "Monumental" Computer Error

Despite leading in the polls for Round One, The Express reports that a monumental computer blunder could cost Marine Le Pen the French general election as 500,000 citizens living outside of France have the chance to vote twice.

The election has become extremely close with just 4.5 percentage points separating Macron, Fillon, Mélenchon, and Le Pen...

Which is why this shocking error in election procedures could be the swing to crush Le Pen"s hopes. As The Express reports, half a million people received duplicate polling cards in the post, which would allow them to cast two votes at the first round of the election, held on April 23.

French authorities confirmed they would not be investigating the potential electoral fraud until AFTER the election, when retrospective prosecution may take place.

We are sure this is a simple "accident", but coincidentally (for the establishment), this could crush Ms Le Pen’s dreams of surging to power, as most French nationals living outside of their country are not right wing - demonstrated by the fact many feel they depend on the European Union (EU) to guarantee their stay in foreign countries. Far left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has surged in the polls recently and threatens to break into the leadership race against Ms Le Pen and Mr Macron, could also benefit from this catastrophic error.

As one French citizen noted:

“This year, this is the first time I have asked myself the question, would I take advantage of this anomaly to vote twice? My candidate was low enough in the polls.”

Voting twice is a crime, but police will only find out if they run a check on the individual through their computer systems.

France’s Interior Ministry has said it will not be invalidating the election because of the duplicate voting glitch.

Democracy, eh?

Two Critical Factors In French Election: Sureness And Abstentions

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

The most recent French election polls remain very tight. Four candidates have a genuine shot at making it to the final round.

The first round vote is on April 23. Yet, a huge percentage of voters still have not made up their minds who to vote for.

Another 32% to 37% plan on sitting the election out or purposely spoiling their ballot.

4.5 Percentage Points Separate Macron, Fillon, Mélenchon

Round One Confidence

How confident should Le Pen and Macron be regarding round one? Take a guess before reading further.

Support for Le Pen is relatively solid. So is support for Fillon. Hamon, Mélenchon, and Macron have issues.

33% of Macron’s alleged base may not even vote for him!

If Mélenchon can manage to hold his base while capturing support for Macron, we could see something virtually no one but me has even discussed: Le Pen vs Mélenchon in round two.

Which Way Are Undecideds Likely to Break?

To ascertain who voters are likely to switch to, assuming they switch, let’s investigate round two intent.

Macron is the clear winner in second round intent, but results vary widely.

Those intending to vote for Hamon are highly likely to support Macron in round two, assuming, of course, Macron does make it to round two.  However, Hamon is only polling 8.5% now as his base has largely abandoned him already.

Despite the fact that the positions of Le Pen and Mélenchon are very similar, Le Pen presumably would pick up very little support from Mélenchon while a whopping 40% would choose to sit the election out in protest.

This looks like a lukewarm hold your nose vote for Macron.

If Fillon is knocked out of round one, his support would be much more evenly split, but Macron still rates better than Le Pen.

Does Any of This Make Much Sense?

On the surface, not much.

Le Pen and Mélenchon both eject EU institutions, free trade, and NATO. Both are in favor closer ties with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Fillon is pro-Europe as is Macron and Hamon. But Le Pen, who is vehemently anti-Europe, rates to pick up 31% of Fillon’s vote if he is knocked out, assuming you believe the polls.

Neither Le Pen nor Mélenchon is likely to get their anti-Euro legislation passed in French parliament and that assessment may help both of them at the expense of Macron.

Le Pen vs Macron

Here’s another chart to ponder.

Given round two intentions stated above, this should have been a massive landslide Macron. But it isn’t.

The above chart is yet another sign of doubt about Macron.

Macron better not make any serious blunders in the final 12 days of round one campaigning.

Also consider French Candidate Mélenchon Launches “Fiscal Kombat”: Free Video Game on Sharing Wealth.

Those wishing to play the game can do so at FiscalKombat.Fr.

French Elections: Populist Revolution Or Status Quo?

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

• "If the Macron bubble doesn"t pop, this may portend the realignment, not just of French politics, but Western politics in general, away from the left-right division that has defined Western politics since the French Revolution, towards a division between the people and the elites." — Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, French political analyst.


• "This divide is no longer between the left and the right, but between patriots and globalists." — Marine Le Pen, French presidential candidate.

The presidential election in France officially got underway on March 18, when the Constitutional Council announced that a total of eleven candidates will be facing off for the country"s top political job.

The election is being closely followed in France and elsewhere as an indicator of popular discontent with traditional parties and the European Union, as well as with multiculturalism and continued mass migration from the Muslim world.

The first round of voting will be held on April 23. If no single candidate wins an absolute majority, the top two winners in the first round will compete in a run-off on May 7.

If the election were held today, independent "progressive" candidate Emmanuel Macron, who has never held elected office, would become the next president of France, according to several opinion polls.

A BVA market research poll for Orange released on March 18 showed that Marine Le Pen, the leader of the anti-establishment National Front party, would win the first round with 26% of the votes, followed by Macron with 25%. Conservative François Fillon is third (19.5%), followed by radical Socialist Benoît Hamon (12.5%) and Leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon (12%).

For the first time, the two established parties, the Socialist Party and the center-right Republicans, would be eliminated in the first round.

In the second round, Macron, a 39-year-old pro-EU, pro-Islam globalist (platform here), would defeat Le Pen, a 48-year-old anti-EU, anti-Islam French nationalist (platform here), by a wide margin (62% to 38%), according to the poll.

Macron, a former investment banker, was an adviser to incumbent Socialist President François Hollande, one of the most unpopular presidents in modern French history. A long-time member of the Socialist Party, Macron served in Hollande"s cabinet for two years as economy minister until August 2016, when he resigned to launch his rival presidential bid to "transform France."

Macron, whose core base of support consists of young, urban progressives, has tried to position himself in the political center, between the Socialists and the conservatives. His meteoric rise has been propelled by a scandal involving Fillon — who is the subject of a criminal investigation over allegations that he used government money to pay his wife and children more than €1 million ($1.1 million) for jobs they never did — and because the Socialists fielded Hamon, a nonviable candidate who has promised to pay every French citizen over 18, regardless of whether or not they are employed, a government-guaranteed monthly income of €750 ($800). The annual cost to taxpayers would be €400 billion ($430 billion). By comparison, France"s 2017 defense budget is €32.7 billion ($40 billion).

Macron"s ascendancy comes amid heightened worries over security. More than 230 people have been killed in attacks in France by Islamic radicals during the past two years. The latest attack, on March 18, involved a 39-year-old French-Tunisian jihadist who proclaimed that he wanted to "die for Allah," and was shot dead after he tried to seize a soldier"s weapon at Orly Airport in Paris.

Shortly after the attack, Le Pen accused Macron and the rest of France"s political establishment of "cowardice in the face of Islamic fundamentalism."

In an apparent effort to bolster his national security credentials, Macron on March 18 announced a surprise proposal to restore compulsory military service. He said he would require men and women between the ages of 18 and 21 to serve one month in the armed forces.

"I want each young French person to be able to experience military life, however brief," Macron said. "This is a major project of society, a real republican project, which should allow our democracy to be more united and the resilience of our society to be increased." Macron, if elected, would become the first president in modern French history not to have performed military service.

Observers say that Macron"s national service proposal — which copies Le Pen"s proposal to reintroduce compulsory military service for a period of at least three months — is an attempt to siphon votes away from Le Pen and Fillon, both of whose campaign platforms call for a strong national defense.

Macron"s proposal, which will require an estimated €15 billion ($16 billion) upfront, and another €3 billion ($3.2 billion) each year to maintain, has been met with derision because of its exorbitant cost and dubious contribution to national security. Le Monde reminded its readers that France spends a similar amount (€3 billion annually) on nuclear deterrence.

Fillon"s spokesman, Luc Chantel, said the proposal was "absurd and unrealistic" and added:

"Either it is a measure designed to discourage students from quitting school, and this is not the mission of the army, or it is training for the defense of France, and one month is a joke, it is a discovery camp."

Some of Macron"s other policy positions include:

• 
  

  European Federalism: Macron has repeatedly called for a stronger European Union. At a January 14 political rally in Lille, he said: "We are Europe, we are Brussels, we wanted it and we need it. We need Europe because Europe makes us bigger, because Europe makes us stronger."

  
  


• 
  

  Single European Currency: In a January 10 speech at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Macron, speaking impeccable English, said: "The truth is that we must collectively recognize that the euro is incomplete and cannot last without major reforms. It has not provided Europe with full international sovereignty against the dollar on its rules. It has not provided Europe with a natural convergence between the different member states. The euro is a weak Deutsche mark, the status quo is synonymous, in 10 years" time, with the dismantling of the euro."

  
  


• 
  

  Migration Crisis: Macron has repeatedly praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel"s open-door migration policy, which has allowed more than two million mostly Muslim migrants into Germany since January 2015.

  
  

  In a January 1, 2017 interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung, Macron accused critics of Merkel"s open-door migration policy of "disgraceful oversimplification." He said: "Merkel and German society as a whole exemplified our common European values. They saved our collective dignity by accepting, accommodating and educating distressed refugees."

  
  

  In a February 4 rally in Lyon, Macron mocked U.S. President Donald Trump"s pledge to build a wall with Mexico: "I do not want to build a wall. I can assure you there is no wall in my program. Can you remember the Maginot Line?" he said, referring to a failed row of fortifications that France built in the 1930s to deter an invasion by Germany.

  
  


• 
  

  Islamic Terrorism: Macron has said he believes the solution to jihadist terrorism is more European federalism: "Terrorism wants to destroy Europe. We must quickly create a sovereign Europe that is capable of protecting us against external dangers in order to better ensure internal security. We also need to overcome national unwillingness and create a common European intelligence system that will allow the effective hunting of criminals and terrorists."

  
  


• 
  

  Islam: Macron has said he believes that French security policy has unfairly targeted Muslims and that "secularism should not be brandished to as a weapon to fight Islam." At an October 2016 rally in Montpellier, he rejected President Hollande"s assertion that "France has a problem with Islam." Instead, Macron said: "No religion is a problem in France today. If the state should be neutral, which is at the heart of secularism, we have a duty to let everybody practice their religion with dignity." He also insisted that the Islamic State is not Islamic: "What poses a problem is not Islam, but certain behaviors that are said to be religious and then imposed on persons who practice that religion."

  
  


• 
  

  National Defense: Macron supports NATO, and has pledged to increase French defense spending to reach 2% of GDP by 2025 — a level to which all NATO members agreed in 2006. At the same time, Macron believes in the need to create an "autonomous" European defense capability, also known as a European Army, which would duplicate military capabilities which already exist within NATO.

  
  

An Ifop poll for the Journal du Dimanche published on March 18 found that French voters are divided into "two quasi-equal blocks" about Macron"s honesty and his ability to govern. According to the survey, only 46% of French people believe he will be "able to guarantee the safety of the French people." More than half (52%) of respondents said they were "worried" about Macron, while 52% said they doubted his honesty.

In an interview with BMFTV, Laurence Haïm, a Canal+ reporter who was accredited to the White House and who recently joined Macron"s team, described Macron as the "French Obama." She added: "I think that in today"s world we need renewal, from someone young, who is not a politician. He wants to make the democratic revolution."

So what is driving Macron"s political ascendancy? French analyst Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry explains:

"The best way to look at Macron is as a kind of anti-Le Pen, or, to stretch the bounds of logic even further, a "populist from the top." If Le Pen is anti-establishment, Macron is the incarnation of the French establishment, a graduate of ENA, the top civil service school that trains the country"s elites, and a member of the Inspection des Finances, the most elite civil service track. His only experience in the private sector is through the revolving door as an investment banker. And yet, Macron sounds off populist rhetoric: His candidacy, he says, is about sweeping out a corrupt system (even as he is supported by the vast majority of the French establishment).

"It would be only slightly churlish to say that the parts of the system Macron wants to do away with are the democratic ones; witness his full-throated support for the EU in a country that has rejected it at the polls. Macron supports various liberalizing reforms, and Angela Merkel"s welcoming policy towards migrants. He is, of course, a social liberal. In a country that takes culture very seriously, he has argued that there is "no such thing" as French culture; rather, there are many cultures with which the French perform a kind of synthesis. His biggest donors seem to be French tax exiles residing in London and Brussels.

"In other words, he is the mirror image of the political realignment that is transforming Western politics. If the familiar motley crew of populists — Trump, Le Pen — are the candidates for those who lost out from globalization, then Macron is the candidate of the winners. In both cases, they seem to make old left-right divisions obsolete. If the Macron bubble doesn"t pop, this may portend the realignment, not just of French politics, but Western politics in general, away from the left-right division that has defined Western politics since the French Revolution, towards a division between the people and the elites.

Le Pen agrees. At a rally in Lyon on February 5, she said:

"The old left-right debates have outlived their usefulness. Primaries have shown that debates about secularism or immigration, as well as globalization or generalized deregulation, constitute a fundamental and transversal divide. This divide is no longer between the left and the right, but between patriots and globalists.

"The collapse of traditional parties and the systematic disappearance of almost all of their leaders shows that a great political re-composition has begun."

At that same rally, Le Pen launched a two-pronged attack on globalization and radical Islam. She also promised French voters a referendum on remaining in the European Union in order "to allow us to recover our four sovereignties: monetary, economic, legislative and territorial."

She went on to articulate exactly what is at stake for France in this election:

In all respects, this presidential election is unlike previous ones. Its outcome will determine the future of France as a free nation and our existence as a people.

After decades of errors and cowardice, we are at a crossroads. I say it with gravity: the choice we will have to make in this election is a choice of civilization.

The question is simple and cruel: will our children live in a free, independent, democratic country? Will they still be able to refer to our system of values? Will they have the same way of life as we did and our parents before us?

Will our children, and the children of our children, still have a job, a decent wage, the possibility of building up a patrimony, becoming an owner, starting a family in a safe environment, being properly cared for, to grow old with dignity?

Will our children have the same rights as us?

Will they live according to our cultural references, our values ??of civilization, our style of living, and will they even speak our French language, which is disintegrating under the blows of political leaders who squander this national treasure — for example, by choosing a slogan in English to promote the candidacy of Paris to host the 2024 Olympic Games?

Will they have the right to claim French culture when certain candidates for the presidential election, puffed up by their own empty-headedness, explain that it does not exist?

I ask this important question because, unlike our adversaries, I am interested not only in the material heritage of the French, but I also want to defend our immaterial capital. This immaterial capital is priceless because this heritage is irreplaceable. In fact, I am defending the load-bearing walls of our society.

The choice for French voters is clear: Le Pen is the anti-establishment change candidate and Macron is the pro-establishment status quo candidate.

In the current French presidential election campaign, Marin Le Pen (right) is the anti-establishment change candidate and Emmanuel Macron (left) is the pro-establishment status quo candidate. (Image source: LCI video screenshot)

Le Pen is offering voters an historic opportunity to reassess relations with the European Union, reassert national sovereignty and stanch the flow of mass migration from the Muslim world. By contrast, Macron is offering voters increased European federalism, the transference of yet more national sovereignty to the European Union, and the further multiculturalization of French society.

If polls are any indication, French voters appear to be more comfortable with the status quo. The populist revolution that began in June 2016 when British voters decided to leave the European Union, and cross the Atlantic in November when Americans elected U.S. President Donald J. Trump, will not be spreading to France in 2017.

Marine Le Pen&#039;s Perfect Storm

Authored by Matt Purple via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Polls missed the last two nationalist tremors; they may miss a third

Think of François Fillon as a more polished and experienced Ted Cruz. He might have been president of France until everything came crashing down.

Fillon is a former French prime minister and admirer of Margaret Thatcher whose libertarian-influenced agenda includes a pledge to ax half a million civil service jobs. He was initially dismissed as an also-ran in the center-right Les Républicains presidential primary, up against the seasoned Nicolas Sarkozy and the moderate Alain Juppé. Instead, Fillon thrashed them both, and polls showed him an early favorite for the French presidency, backed by energized conservatives and the Catholic Right. Eschewing first-past-the-post, France holds a runoff election between its top two finishing presidential candidates if neither secures a majority, and forecasts last year showed the finalists would be Fillon and the National Front’s Marine Le Pen. It was to be a rumble on the right, and Fillon was predicted to win in a rout as French leftists and centrists clothespinned their noses and voted to block the radioactive Le Pen.

Or at least, that’s what was supposed to happen. Instead, Fillon was quickly submerged in controversy as it came out that he’d funneled 900,000 euros in public money to his family, a scandal that became known as “Penelopegate” after his implicated wife. An investigation was launched and Fillon’s poll numbers sagged into third place, drawing an intervention from the omnipresent Sarkozy and whispers that Juppé might take over as nominee. But Juppé ultimately declined to run, cognizant of being a moderate beached in a year of fury, and Fillon remained defiant. He would only step down, an aide said, if a planned rally last Sunday turned out to be a dud. Lo and behold, tens of thousands of conservative faithful turned out, and he limped onwards.

France’s political dichotomy has thus been plunged into the unknown. The major parties are sidelined for now, with Fillon a boulder on the back of the center-Right Républicains and the center-Left Parti Socialiste floundering under the stewardship of detested current president François Hollande who is not standing for reelection. Amidst all this, the polling service Oxoda now finds Le Pen running neck-in-neck with another candidate, Emmanuel Macron, an independent whose En Marche! movement is serving as an outlet for the forlorn political center. Macron is a novelty in French politics: an investment banker who was appointed economic minister at the age of thirty seven and who’s still never been elected to public office in his life. He has a youthful charisma that this cliché-deploring writer only reluctantly describes as “Kennedyesque” and his rallies have grown exponentially in size since he entered the race.

The 2016 presidential election in the United States embodied the old versus the new, with Hillary Clinton the conventional and choreographed handmaiden of our hoary political consensus and Donald Trump the populist stick of TNT primed to blow underneath. Assuming present trends hold, the French election this April will be one step advanced, leapfrogging over the mainstream parties entirely and pitting against each other the two flavors of reform that are most likely to dominate Western politics in the years to come. Neither Macron nor Le Pen believes France can continue on its current track and both are proposing ambitious overhauls to the French social contract. After a year that’s seen economic stagnation and rowdy strikes, protests targeting abusive cops and demonstrations against immigration, terrorist attacks, soccer riots, and the southward seeping shock of Brexit, the only thing certain in France is that much has to change.

Le Pen’s appeal is obvious. She’s the Gallic Trump, France’s vessel for the West’s recent flirtation with populism. Head of the Front National, which had long been dismissed as bigoted until she vigorously resuscitated it and expelled its former leader and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, she’s successfully blended anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic politics with a dedication to the welfare state that isn’t shared by more established French conservatives like Fillon. The nut of her message is that French institutions, benefits, handouts, society, all of it, ought to be reserved for the French and not its newcomers. Because the European Union stands for the globalism and multiculturalism she abhors, she energetically backed Brexit and has promised to hold a referendum on France’s membership in the EU.

The parallels between her candidacy and the Trump Train are undeniable: French voters shrugging that they’ve tried everything else so may as well take a gamble on the neophyte, blue-collar workers ditching the socialists after decades of perceived neglect, immigration as a political keystone joining Left and Right in fury wrought from economic pain. In northeastern France, industrial workers battered by globalization and the shuttering of their blast furnaces—“cathedrals” they call them—are breaking for Le Pen. In the rural middle, farmers, their livelihoods buttressed by Brussels, are stomaching Le Pen’s anti-EU rhetoric in favor of her promise to displace their loathed political class. The cultural flashpoints touted by the Front National—like its pledge to ban the chaste “burqini” swimwear popular among Muslims; “France isn’t burqinis on the beach. France is Brigitte Bardot,” Le Pen told CBS News—have real resonance with both demographics.

Like Le Pen, Macron is also determined to discomfit the French political establishment, which he views as quiescent and self-serving, and he too repudiates traditional party labels, defining himself as “neither left nor right.” But once you place him off the traditional political grid, it becomes evident he’s Le Pen’s antithesis in nearly every other way. He’s a devotee of Europe who believes the solution to the EU’s woes is reform rather than the scrap heap. He advocates for refugees whom he says present an “economic opportunity” and have “remarkable qualifications.” He espouses that inchoate mixture of social liberalism and economic liberalization with which many young people functionally identify. He understands that France’s overregulated and hamstrung economy can’t continue to function as is. He warned President Hollande that a proposed 75 percent tax on millionaires would turn France into “Cuba without the sun.”

The Le Pen-Macron dichotomy, which in many ways runs orthogonal to traditional Left and Right, is far more representative of where the peoples of the West are right now than the mainstream party duopoly. The issues are many. Do economies function better open or half-closed? Is a job something portable and ephemeral or is it a singular and sturdy column of well-being rooted in place? Can the globalization genie be put back in the bottle? Are we citizens of nations or citizens of nations and the world? Should our cardinal civic virtue be tolerance or patriotism? Le Pen’s and Macron’s answers to those questions, splayed on their respective platforms, could not be more diametrically opposed.

France is thus a microcosm of the present, fraught, unsteady Western world, and her election could be a dress rehearsal for our coming political realignment. The conjecture on the lips of European elites is whether Le Pen, whose brand of disruption is far greater anathema to them than Macron’s, can win the presidency. Conventional wisdom dictates that this won’t happen, that Macron will crush Le Pen in the runoff election, flush with support from Socialistes and Républicains determined to obstruct the Front National. But don’t be so certain. Portents were to be found at that Fillon rally last weekend where, amidst pouring rain and wind, conservative activists brimmed with tea party-esque rage towards their own party grandees. “If Fillon is out,” one demonstrator warned, “many of us will vote extreme, I am convinced.” If Le Pen can shepherd those disgruntled Républicains foot soldiers into her fold for the runoff, her chances will improve significantly.

Of course, the polls show . . . but who really cares what the polls show? They failed to register the last two nationalist tremors and it’s entirely possible they’re about to miss another one.

Fillongate Four Ways (Penelopegate, Loangate, Suitgate, Nosegate): Right Message, Wrong Time

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

French presidential candidate Francois Fillon is largely correct about things that need to be done to heal France. However, his message is lost in Penelopegate, Loangate, Suitgate, and Nosegate.

Please consider François Fillon’s Taste in Bespoke Suits Draws Criticism.

The embattled French presidential hopeful on Monday promised to deliver a “shock treatment” of austerity and deregulation if elected, sticking to a free-market economic platform that has evoked comparisons with Margaret Thatcher.

But Mr. Fillon’s expensive taste in suits has become the latest problem for his presidential campaign, which has been sent off-course by allegations that have cast doubt over his ethics.

Drawing attention to potential conflicts of interest, the Journal du Dimanche newspaper revealed on Sunday that an unnamed friend of the candidate had written a €13,000 cheque last month “at Mr. Fillon’s request” to buy him two bespoke suits from a boutique in Paris’s expensive Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood.

On Wednesday he is expected to be placed under formal investigation — one step short of being charged — over suspicion of misusing more than €880,000 in state funds to employ his wife Penelope and children in fake jobs as aides.

On Monday he detailed economic measures that focused on curbing the state’s role to try and jolt the eurozone’s second-largest economy into quicker growth.

Largely sticking to the program he had outlined during his primary campaign, Mr. Fillon promised to cut half a million civil service jobs, save €100bn in annual public spending over five years, eliminate the 35-hour limit on the working week and grant companies €40bn in tax breaks.

“The French have had enough of constantly being screwed around by the state,” Mr. Fillon told Europe 1 radio, using the kind of frank language that helped him to win November’s primary.

But the former prime minister, with four decades in politics, is struggling to divert attention from allegations of conflicts of interest. As well as the probe into his family’s jobs, questions have emerged over the financial help provided to Mr. Fillon by Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, a billionaire entrepreneur who lent him €50,000 and employed Ms. Fillon as a literary adviser.

The latest revelations followed public outrage at the publication by the Republican party of a caricature of Emmanuel Macron, the new presidential favorite, with a hooked nose and a top hat that mirrored 1930s anti-Semitic propaganda. On Sunday Mr. Fillon apologized for the drawing and promised action against those involved.

Austerity Message Cannot Be Heard

1. When you preach austerity, do you want to be seen in €13,000 suits?


2. When you preach austerity, do you want to be under fraud investigation for paying your wife and kids €880,000 out of public money, for doing nothing?


3. When you preach austerity, do you want to be under investigation for taking illegal loans?


4. When doing points 1-3 above, how does it come across when you want to fire 500,000 civil service workers?

Adding fat to the fire, Fillon’s party posted an extremely unwise  anti-Semitic picture of his opponent.

Right Message, Wrong Time, Exceptionally Poor Delivery

Fillon is of course correct about reducing the size of government and the burden on French businesses.

But his program would be a tough sell in socialistic France, even in the best of circumstances.

That is why I said Marine le Pen would have beaten Fillon.

Can le Pen beat Emmanuel Macron? I think she can, that is not to say she will.

Le Pen&#039;s Chief Of Staff, Bodyguard Detained By Police

It is getting difficult to keep track of all the parallel (alleged) financial scandals involving French presidential candidates.

Several weeks after presidential candidate Francois Fillon"s campaign nearly ended over a sprawling graft scandal involving allegations he used public funds to pay the wages of his wife and children, on Wednesday, French police detained two of Marine Le Pen"s closest aides: her bodyguard and chief of staff,  for questioning over alleged misuse of European Union funds to pay parliamentary assistants, Le Pen"s lawyer said.

Le Pen slammed the latest move in what Reuters dubbed "a financial sleaze case" that has landed her in the spotlight alongside another leading candidate, Francois Fillon, a right-winger being investigated over public funds he paid to his wife and children. Wary that her image and lead position in polls of voting intentions could be hurt, Le Pen said she was convinced voters would not fall for what her lawyer Marcel Ceccaldi called a "manipulation" designed to destabilize her.

Marine Le Pen walks on the Promenade des Anglais with her bodyguard Thierry Legier

"The French can tell the difference between genuine scandals and political dirty-tricks," Le Pen, who has previously denied any wrongdoing in the affair, told reporters. The two held for questioning are Le Pen"s bodyguard, Thierry Legier, and her chief of staff, Catherine Griset, key figures in an investigation opened following demands by the European Parliament that Le Pen repay money she is accused of wrongly paying the two.

Le Pen is a clear frontrunner in the April 23 first round of the two-round presidential race; while polls have seen her losing the runoff ballot on May 7 - to either Fillon or another independent candidate, the centrist Emmanuel Macron - she has steadly eroded their advantage in recent days, leading to a selloff in French bonds and a furious buying spree in German short-term bunds, which earlier today hit a record low yield of -0.92%.

Wednesday"s detentions followed a police raid on Monday on Le Pen"s National Front party headquarters on the western edge of Paris, while she was abroad.

Selling Of French Bonds Accelerates As Le Pen Extends Lead, Macron Tumbles In Latest Poll

Another day, another headache for owners of French bonds. In the latest French presidential poll, conducted by Elabe for TV broadcaster BFMTV, Marine Le Pen extended her lead by another 2-3 points, while support for her primary centrist challenger Emmanuel Macron, tumbled by 5 points in the last week.

The poll, released today, showed that Le Pen"s lead rose by either 1.5 points to 27% or by 2 points to 28%, depending whether centrist candidate Francois Bayrou would take part in the election...

... or withdraw.

The most surprising result, however, is the plunge in Macron"s odds, who lost five points in the first round voting intentions compared to the same poll conducted two weeks ago. Macron, who is the former French economy minister and who is running on a pro-EU platform, fell to third place behind right-wing candidate Francois Fillon, whom he eclipsed earlier in the month after a major embezzlement scandal erupted in which Fillon was accused of using public funds to pay for his family"s wages. Fillon gained 3 points in both variations of the poll.

But more concerning for her opponents, was the notable gains Le Pen made in the second round, where while still trailing behind both Fillon and Macron, she has seen a 4 points gain in the past week, shrinking the difference between Macron in the runoff round to 59-41. Until several weeks ago, she was firmly in the 20% range.

Meanwhile, as we have observed virtually every single day in the past three weeks, the better Le Pen does the polls, the higher French yields rise, and the greater the spread to German bunds....

... over fears that a Le Pen victory would be the last nail in the coffin for the Eurozone. Le Pen"s FN party has warned it would take France out of the Eurozone, return to the French franc, and would redenominate billions in French debt, a step which leading economists and rating agencies last week declared would to "massive sovereign default" and global financial chaos.

Fillon Apologizes For Employing His Family, Vows To Keep Campaigning With Renewed Energy

With some speculating that French presidential candidate Francois Fillon, mired in a growing political scandal involving public payments made to his wife and children for a "fake job", would announce a resignation at a 4pm conference, moments ago the former frontrunner for the French presidency defended himself as Reuters suggested, and stated that he has "nothing to hide", that his wife’s salary was “perfectly justified” and that he has been the subject of unprecedented political attacks.

He also said that "everything about him is legal and transparent" and that he would disclose his assets, including his real estate, and bank accounts. While he did acknowledge the "morality" angle of his case, he called for overall reform of the parliamentary aide system. Curiously, he also added that his wife "never worked for any Russian entity."

“I understand the need for me to clarify things and I will do it because I have nothing to hide,” Fillon said at a press conference in Paris. “Yes I employed my spouse. She was in the job for 15 years.”
The practice was legal, though he acknowledged that it is no longer seen as acceptable and he apologized to voters.

He did not miss the opportunity to take a dig at his main opponent, Marine Le Pen, and said that the "real danger in France is the extreme right."

He then vowed to keep campaigning with renewed energy.

The Republican nominee’s recovery plan comes in the face of falling in support in the polls since the a Jan. 24 report saying that his wife had worked as his parliamentary assistant for many years while showing little to no presence in parliament. Prosecutors opened a preliminary probe into the matter and extended the investigation into his children who also worked in similar jobs.

Polls by Ifop and Elabe show Fillon has slipped into third place in the election behind National Front leader Marine Le Pen and independent candidate Emmanuel Macron. Surveys also show that Macron would go on to defeat Le Pen in the May 7 run-off vote.

Le Pen currently has the support of 25 percent of voters, compared with 20.5 percent for Macron and 18.5 percent for Fillon, according to the latest Ifop rolling poll.

While the public"s immediate response to Fillon"s speech appears to be agreeable, with Fillon"s odds of becoming next president with online bookies rising from 6/1 to 4/1 after the speech...

Francois Fillon speech goes down well with political punters,who back him from 6/1 to 4/1 to be French President. 6/5 Macron; 5/2 Le Pen.

— William Hill (@sharpeangle) February 6, 2017

... but the market"s kneejerk reaction is less favorable, with French bonds extending losses, as the 10Y yield climbs 6bps to 1.14%.

French Socialist Primary Winner Proposes Tax On Robots, Universal Income, Right Of Foreigners To Vote

Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

France24 reports Benoît Hamon and Manuel Valls take top spots in first round of left-wing primary in a field of seven candidates.

Let’s take a look at other reports, then we will look at Hamon’s amazing platform.

Bloomberg notes Valls, Hamon Qualify for French Socialist Primary Run-Off.

In the first round of voting Sunday night, Hamon was first with 35.2 percent with Valls on 31.6 percent, with about one-third of voting stations reporting, the primary authority said. Former Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg, who was third with 18.7 percent, endorsed Hamon saying that the primary shows that Socialist voters want more leftist policies.

The voters “have massively and seriously condemned” the government’s policies, Montebourg said. They “want the left to return to the path of the left.”

Benoît Hamon’s Platform

Benoît Hamon is a 49-year-old former education minister. Here is his platform.

1. Universal basic income.


2. Tax on robots.


3. Progressive taxation of wealth.


4. Reduction of tax loopholes.


5. 32-hour working week.


6. Legalization of marijuana.


7. National conference on “environmental democracy”.


8. 50% renewable energy by 2025.


9. Differentiated VAT for the “most virtuous products”.


10. Ban on pesticides.


11. Better repayments for dental care.


12. A “Sixth Republic”.


13. Transformation of the Senate into “college of territories”.


14. The right of foreigners to vote in local elections.


15. “Humanitarian visa”  and redo of France a land of asylum.


16. Consideration of the white vote. If the white vote is a majority vote, the election must be postponed.


17. Media antitrust law.


18. Labor law repeal to provide additional protection to employees.


19. Help facilitate the takeover of SCOP companies by employees.


20. Recognize burn-out as an occupational disease.

That reads like it came from The Onion. However, it’s translated from Benoît Hamon, favorite of the primary: his very left program.

According to the Financial Times, “Mr Hamon’s proposals have been criticized as unrealistic and costly by rivals including Arnaud Montebourg”.

Now, Montebourg backs Hamon because voters “want the left to return to the path of the left.”

Amazing Twitter Performance

In a field of seven candidates, that platform got Hamon 35% of the vote. Amazing.

How did he get there? The new-fashioned way. Hamon has a huge following on Twitter.

Looking Ahead

Don’t rule out le Pen.

Should Hamon square off against Marine le Pen, I believe le Pen would win. Le Pen might also win in the widely-expected final match-up against François Fillon, the Republican winner and former Prime Minister of France.

Recent political events are such that anything could happen.

Can Marine Le Pen Pull Off French Election Stunner? Germany Loses No Matter Who Wins

Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Conventional wisdom suggests National Front candidate Marine le Pen will make it to the second round in French elections, then lose in a landslide to whoever her opponent happens to be.

I believe le Pen’s odds of winning it outright are far better than most think.

Current Polls

Chart from Wikipedia, with image clips added.

Top Five candidates

1. Marine le Pen: National Front – Eurosceptic, Anti-Immigration – 25%


2. François Fillon: Republicans – Center Right – 24%


3. Emmanuel Macron: En Marche! – Socialist – 17%


4. Manuel Valls: Socialist – 11%


5. Jean-Luc Mélenchon: Left Front – Socialist – 13%

In France, the winners of each party square off in around one of national elections. If no one gets 50% of the vote, the top two square off in round two.

With about 25% or so solid votes, le Pen is likely to make it to the second round. The others battle to see who comes up against le Pen.

Eurointelligence Reports

January 13: Yesterday night the seven candidates for the left primaries had their first debate. It was sometimes painful to watch and it is not clear how much the audience took home from the long catalogue of measures the candidates were quizzed about. All tried to differentiate themselves from François Hollande, and lashed out against the common enemy François Fillon. All were eager to show how presidential they are and how well they represent the real socialist heart. Though it did not look like they succeeded. One blogger wrote that there was one irreconcilable division, that is between the candidates and their audience.

François Fillon, meanwhile, has his own rebellion to deal with. Laurent Wauquiez, Christian Estrosi, and other ex-Sarkozists, insist on making their own mark and call for changes to Fillon’s programme. When Fillon made his big appearance in Nice, Estrosi told everyone in front of the presidential candidate that he is not a “Filloniste”. Laurent Wauquiez, who was fired by Fillon, is leading this mini-revolt. He recently called for a de-taxation of supplementary working hours, one of Sarkozy’s key measures, which is absolutely not in the Fillon’s programme, writes Marianne. Brice Hortefeux, another Sarkozy ally, said they want to enrich the programme. Fillon, however, remains firm and will not give in to those demands. His campaign chief dismissed those efforts as coming from bad losers or small players. The risk is that he may alienate the Sarkozy wing, though.

January 12: For Macron, no politics goes without narrative and no narrative without ideal. So, what is his ideal? Some friends call him a real libertarian, others a real democrat, who has yet to find a socially empathetic narrative. In 2015 he outlined his three dreams – equality, Europe and industry. When it comes to Europe, he may well compare with Jacques Delors, who like him was not loved by the Socialist party and made his way. But this comparison only holds on Europe. Macron’s economic ideal is inspired by new-Keynesian thinking, and the idea that social improvement is achieved by eliminating unjust rents that keep up barriers in society.

January 11: Emmanuel Macron is the most pro-European among the presidential candidates, though will he really be ready to confront the Germans and change the course of the eurozone? We have our doubts, but he is the only candidate with at least an explicit eurozone agenda. In his speech at Humboldt University in Berlin yesterday he promised that, if elected, he would propose a common eurozone budget for investment and financial assistance in case of shocks. At the EU council in December 2017 he would propose democratic conventions in all EU countries for 6-10 months.

We note that his Berlin speech did not make headlines in the French press. They were more interested in comparing Macron with the Socialist candidates or to François Fillon, or in the question whether Macron exaggerated his arguments. There is a clear national bias in reporting, as we have observed so many times in the past.

The Front National took the chance to pick up on the point that Macron gave his speech in English rather than French. Pauvre France, tweeted Marine Le Pen. Florian Philippot writes it only shows Macron’s disrespect for the French language, and that he does not believe in France.

The latest Ifop poll for Paris Match shows Marine Le Pen (26%) advancing to the pole position for the first round, overtaking Francois Fillon (24%). Macron comes third (17%), far ahead of the Manuel Valls (10.5%). Le Pen is still expected to lose in the second round against Fillon (64% to 36%) or Macron (65% to 35%). We agree with François Heisbourg, who tweeted that this is a wildly unpredictable election.

Wildly Unpredictable

I agree with Eurointelligence this is a wildly unpredictable election.

Already we have seen “wild” results with former president Nicolas Sarkozy unexpectedly getting clobbered in the first round of the primary by Francois Fillon.

Germany a Loser No Matter Who Wins?

• Le Pen: Eurosceptic – Seeks better relations with Russia


• Macron: Pro Europe but seeks a common eurozone budget for investment and financial assistance in case of shocks.


• Mélenchon: A socialist who will not be in favor of reforms France desperately needs


• Valls: After the 2016 Nice attack, he was booed for saying that “France will have to live with terrorism.”


• Fillon: Fillon aims to reduce the public sector and cut 500,000 civil-service jobs.  He wants the state healthcare program (securité sociale) to work better with fewer payments. Fillon is in favor of increasing the retirement age to 65. He seeks better relations with Russia.

Of the five, Germany could work best with Fillon. But his pro-Russia stance poses at least a minor problem.

Fillon vs. Le Pen

Can Le Pen Win?

I think the current odds are wildly off, just as there were in the US with Trump. Le Pen is eurosceptic, but she will not seek to gut civil-service. Her message that France throws money at the EU will resonate with some. She regularly denounces France’s bandwagoning towards the USA. Her anti-immigration message will appeal to anyone who blames immigration for loss of jobs.

Since Bottoming in November, Le Pen has steadily picked up voter approval vs. Fillon.

What happened? Fillon had to disclose more and more of his policies in his  primary vs. Sarkozy.

Many of Le Pen’s ideas are socialistic at heart. The socialists will not want an increased work week, hundreds of thousands of civil service jobs cut, etc.

In round one of the French presidential election there will be lots of mud thrown, some of it at le Pen, but most of it will go to Macron, Mélenchon, Valls, and Fillon, all wanting the second spot.

It is by no means certain le Pen makes it to the second round, but that outcome is highly likely.

And if le Pen comes out better than expected, especially if there is a big mud-fight among the others, her chances in round 2 are far better than most believe.

Le Pen Presidential Campaign Threatened By Russian Bank Failure

A problem has emerged for France"s anti-immigrant, anti-Euro presidential frontrunner, Marine Le Pen, and it has little to do with being behind in the polls ahead of the 2017 presidential elections, far from it. It has, however, everything to do with something far simpler: money, as the National Front leader is suddenly struggling to raise the €20 million ($21 million) she needs to fund the French presidential and legislative campaigns in 2017 after the party’s Russian lender failed, the party treasurer said.

This past July, the Central Bank of Russia revoked the license of the National Front’s Moscow-based lender First Czech Russian Bank OOO and Le Pen"s party has still to find another backer, according to treasurer Wallerand de Saint Just. Saint Just said he’s seeking international financiers in countries including Russia because French banks have refused to fund his party.

In a phone interview with Bloomberg, Saint Just said that “the loss of the FCRB was a hard blow for us" adding that “the Russia loan was a stable resource. Now we are still searching for loans.”

And, since a Le Pen victory threatens to be the final straw that crushes the European establishment camel, it is no surprise that no existing financial organizations are willing to provide her with the funds she may need to crush them.

Last week, the French Le Parisian reported that a U.S. investment bank was preparing to lend the party $20 million in August, but pulled the plug on the deal at the last minute.

Le Pen’s ties with Russia have come under scrutiny in recent weeks amid reports that the CIA "concluded" that Putin directed hackers to buoy the candidacy of Donald Trump in the U.S. Le Pen is running second in the race to become France’s next president and is openly supportive of Putin’s military operations in Syria. The now defunct Russian bank lent the National Front €9 million in 2014. In the same year, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen’s political fund Cotelec received another 2 million-euro loan from a Russian-backed fund based in Cyprus, news website Mediapart reported. Saint Just said Cotelec helped fund the party’s 2015 regional campaign.

Realizing which way the "Putin conspiracy theory" winds blow, Le Pen knows she wouldn’t have any problem in getting a Russian loan but, according to Bloomberg, she has decided the risks outweigh the benefits because she’d be hounded for this by the French media, said Sergei Markov, a political consultant to the Kremlin administration.  “Le Pen doesn’t want to endanger her chances,” Markov said by phone. While Russia sees the conservative candidate Francois Fillon as a strong presidential contender, it also doesn’t rule out a far-right victory, he said.

Meanwhile, Le Pen is surviving on a modest grassroots campaign, having raised some money from followers and the party has some reserves it can draw on, Saint Just said, without giving any figures. “In these funding matters you have to remain discreet,” he said. “No figures, no names.”

Of course, should Le Pen proceed to win the French election, it would be another crushing blow for the status quo, and another huge victory for the Kremlin, which would then be accused of rigging the entire world.

As Bloomberg adds, the National Front leader and her allies have made multiple trips to Moscow or Crimea in recent years. Putin this month signed a “working agreement” with Austria’s populist Freedom Party in Moscow, after the group reached the runoff for its presidential election.

Ironically, amid concern that Russia may also seek to influence European elections, the National Front has begun to play down its ties to Moscow, something which clearly neither bothered Trump, nor adversely impacted his victory in presidential race. In February Saint Just said the party was reaching out to Russian banks for 25 million euros to bankroll its presidential campaign.

Unlike other candidates, Le Pen hasn’t disclosed her campaign’s funding or spending.

Others are more open: republicans nominee Francois Fillon, who is leading in the polls, published the spending on his primary campaign on Wednesday while centrist contender Emmanuel Macron said his newly founded party En Marche! has raised 4 million euros from donors. Both disclosures were voluntary as campaign accounts don’t have be made public in France.

The two-round presidential election is scheduled for April 23 and May 7 and the French will return to the polls on June 11 and 18 to elect delegates to the National Assembly, the lower chamber.

Should Le Pen remain financially isolated, her chance of winning the election in which she is perceived as a long shot, but all too possible in light of recent stunning political upheavals, will quickly evaporate.