Geert Wilders: "It"s Time To Drain The Swamp... In Europe"

Authored by Geert Wilders via The Gatestone Institute,

• Our democracies in the Western half of Europe have been subverted. Their goal is no longer to do what the people want. On the contrary, our political elites often do exactly the opposite. Our parliaments promote open-door policies that the majority of the people reject. Our governments sell out sovereignty to the EU against the will of the people. Our rulers welcome ever more Islam, although the majority of the people oppose it.


• Our democracies have become fake democracies. They are multi-party dictatorships, ruled by groups of establishment parties.... The establishment parties control everything, not just the politicians in their pay, but also the top brass of the civil service, the mainstream media, even the courts.... They call us "populists" because we stand for what the people want. They even drag us to court.


• We need to show that Europe"s streets are our streets, that we want to stay who and what we are, and do not want to be colonized by Islam. Europe belongs to us!

Next month, I will be visiting Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. I have been invited to speak to a group of Czech patriots. The Czechs are a freedom loving people. In 2011, on the occasion of the 100^th birthday of Ronald Reagan, they named a street in Prague after this great American president and freedom fighter.

This fact reminded me of a shameful event in my home town of The Hague, the seat of the Dutch Parliament and the government of the Netherlands. Look for a Ronald Reagan Street in The Hague and you will find none. A proposal in 2011 to name a street in The Hague after Reagan ran into fierce political opposition. Leftist parties, such as Labor, the Greens and the liberal D66 party, argued that naming a street in honor of Reagan would "do the image of the city no good." The whole affair ended in a disgraceful political compromise. Last year, a short stretch of a local bicycle path was named the "Reagan and Gorbachev Lane".

This anecdote is indicative of the difference between East and West in Europe. We can see the same difference in the attitude of their ruling elites towards Islam, the new totalitarianism that is threatening Europe today. In the East, political leaders oppose Islam; in the West, they surrender.

Islam has already gained a strong foothold in Western Europe. Its streets have come to resemble the Middle East, with headscarves everywhere. Parts of Western Europe, such as the Schilderswijk district in The Hague, the Molenbeek borough in Brussels, the banlieues [suburbs] of Paris, Birmingham in Britain, the Rosengård area in Malmö, Sweden, and many other neighborhoods, have become hotbeds of Islamic subversion.

Islam"s totalitarian nature cannot be denied. The command to murder and terrorize non-Muslims is in the Koran. Islam"s prophet Muhammad was a mass murderer and a pedophile. Those who leave Islam supposedly deserve death. And everyone who criticizes Islam and exposes what it actually says, ends up like me: on an Islamic death list.

In the past decades, Islam has entered Western Europe with the millions of immigrants from Islamic countries. Now, the European Union wants to distribute third-world immigrants over all the 28 EU member states. The nations in Central and Eastern Europe reject the EU plans to impose permanent and mandatory relocation quotas for all EU member states. They warn about the dilution of their identity, which is not Islamic, but Judeo-Christian and humanist -- rooted in the legacy of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome; not Mecca.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has denounced the EU"s pro-immigration agenda as a means to eradicate the culture and Christian identity of Hungary. Czech President Miloš Zeman is an outspoken opponent of immigration and the Islamification of the Czech Republic. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said that "Islam has no place in Slovakia" and warns that "migrants change the character of our country." Polish Prime Minister Beata Szyd?o staunchly defends Poland"s refusal to accept the EU-imposed immigration quotas. "We are not going to take part in this madness," she says. In the Eastern part of Europe, anti-Islamification and anti-mass migration parties see a surge in popular support.

Resistance is growing in the West, as well. This year, we have seen my party, the Party for Freedom (PVV), become the second-largest party in the Netherlands. This is a great achievement in a country with 13 parties in Parliament. In France, Marine Le Pen made it to the second round in the French presidential elections and her party, the Front National, got more votes than ever. In Austria, the FPÖ became the second biggest party. In Germany, the patriots of the AfD forced their way into the Bundestag.

Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), casts his vote in The Hague during the Dutch general election that made his the second-largest party in the Netherlands, on March 15, 2017. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

However, the political elites in the West do all they can to keep the winners of the elections from power. Last month, in my country, the Netherlands, a new government coalition consisting of no less than four parties was formed. Because they stubbornly refused to talk to PVV, it took the political elites a record seven months to put together a coalition. They preferred to take in D66, the party which had denied Ronald Reagan his street in The Hague, and still they were only able to form a government with a majority of just one single seat in Parliament.

Our democracies in the Western half of Europe have been subverted. Their goal is no longer to do what the people want. On the contrary, our political elites often do exactly the opposite. Our parliaments promote open-door policies that the majority of the people reject. Our governments sell out sovereignty to the EU against the will of the people. Our rulers welcome ever more Islam, although the majority of the people oppose it.

Our democracies have become fake democracies. They are multi-party dictatorships, ruled by groups of establishment parties. They wheel and deal, often selling away the principles for which they have been elected. The establishment parties control everything, not just the politicians in their pay, but also the top brass of the civil service, the mainstream media, even the courts. Parties such as mine are excluded from coalition talks. They call us "populists" because we stand for what the people want. They even drag us to court.

Three decades ago, the countries in Central Europe witnessed a Velvet Revolution: Democratic, political and peaceful. They took to the streets. They decided that enough was enough. Thanks to their Velvet Revolution, they have leaders today who truly represent the people and who are not afraid to stand up for their nation and its identity.

We, in Western Europe, can learn lessons from the Velvet Revolution in the East. We, too, urgently need to make clear that enough is enough. In Western Europe, too, it is time to drain the swamp and to drive the elites from power. Peaceful and democratic, but thorough. We have to make our so-called democratic systems truly democratic again. The political actors should no longer be the professional politicians alone. The crisis is existential. It is time for every man and woman to do his and her duty. Because the survival of our nations itself is at stake.

We, too, have to make it very clear that we no longer want to take part in the madness of leaders, who sell out their country to the EU institutions in Brussels, and the madness of the EU elites, who sell out our continent to mass-immigration and Islam. That is why the PVV will demonstrate in the streets of Rotterdam on January 20^th. We need to show that Europe"s streets are our streets, that we want to stay who and what we are, and do not want to be colonized by Islam. Europe belongs to us!

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

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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.

Why Charles Gave Expects "Total Mayhem" In France Even If Macron Is Elected

Venerable French investor Charles Gave has been managing money and researching markets for over 40 years; as such France’s elder statesman of asset allocation perhaps best captures the mood ahead of the most crucial Presidential election in a generation. In conversation with Dr. Pippa Malmgren, Charles breaks down national politics to understand why voters have rejected the establishment and the market impact of both outcomes, and what to expect from tomorrow"s election.

First, Gave, who says "I"m not so sure that Macron will win", is asked by Malmgren to walk RealVision viewers through what Macron"s agenda would look like in case of a victory. Gave is unable to do so for several simple reasons:

Well, first, nobody knows. Because during the whole campaign, all these talks were on one hand, on the other. I"m in favor of apple pie, and motherhood, you see. Basically he has, to my knowledge, very little program. So he"s running. That is what Hollande said. That he was going to make some fundamental changes without hurting people. And so Macron is a big, empty suit. That"s what he is. You did the right curriculum vitae, he went to the right schools. And you have the feeling that the guy never had an original idea in his life. He was always a good student.

And moreover, there is a strong suspicion that he"s a kind of golem created by Hollande and all these guys. So since they knew they were going to lose the election, they created a guy in a hologram that would run for them and prevent them from losing power. So to a certain extent, the French political system has been captured by what you can call the Technocratic class. And whether from the left or the right, it didn"t make any difference. And this Technocratic class is presenting Macron as a brand new fellow. He is nothing brand new. These guys have been in power for 50 years for God"s sakes. So this is basically nothing.

Gave is then asked for his take on the market"s reaction, first to the outcome which now appears to be fully priced in, i.e., a Macron victory. The French investor"s response should be concerning to those who believe France is in for a period of calm and stability.

If Macron is elected, as I already said, I"m not sure it"s not going to be a triumphant election. So I"m not sure they will have that much legitimacy at first. And second thing is that just after, we have the election for the French Parliament. And then it"s going to be a total mayhem. Because you have four main different currents in France. The extreme left, the Macron left, you see? You have the Fillon right, and you have Le Pen"s right. So you have four. The way it"s done before is that you had only three. Extreme left and the left were joined. And you had the election, you had three guys, and if anyone from the Front National had any chance of being elected, then the worst position of the other two retired. Right away. And said, you must vote for my usual enemy, but we don"t want to. It’s what’s called the Front Republic.

But you see, it"s kind of easy to organize if the organization of the parties are very strong and can force people to retire and to stop running. But if you have four, the organization of the parties having lost all credibility, then nobody is going to retire. Until we are going to have elections. And you could have a majority of MP"s from the Front National The majority of MP"s from Melenchen. Anything is possible. So the fact that Macron is elected doesn"t reduce at all. Not at all. The political risk in France. It may reappear at the election time, big time. So anybody who buys on the idea that the problem is solved in France, let’s move to the next one will have to wait till the middle of June.

Alternatively, what if Le Pen wins:

If Le Pen wins, it"s pretty simple. The bond market in France, Italy, Spain cannot open on Monday morning. And I suppose the euro is dead in the following week. And then you have to buy Europe like crazy. Southern Europe.

Why Southern Europe? Because it is Germany"s markets that would bear the brunt of the selloff, as the dissolution of the euro and European Union would effectively bring about the end of Germany"s economic hegemony (while at the same time benefitting France).

The Germans have made a colossal mistake, which is that they have all the production in Germany. So they"re extremely efficient, well-organized, and they have developed massive current account surpluses. Half of that surplus is in cars. The margin on cars is around 4%. Imagine that the euro breaks down. The deutschmark comes back. The deutschmark goes up 15, 20%. And the whole German industry, all the production base in Germany, becomes bankrupt in no time at all. Compare that to France. France we have magnificent big companies that have been intelligent enough to produce everywhere in the world, to operate from everywhere in the world, and be totally independent from what"s happening in France. What they have in France is their headquarters. And that"s about it. So if Europe breaks, you should be long France on the stock market, and short Germany. Big time.

Would a Le Pen victory also mean the end of the EU? Gave answers:

I wrote a book in 2002, sometime around then, called "Lions Led by Donkeys in France." It was kind of a bestseller. And I made the point in the book that the euro is going to destroy Europe, the European institutions. And I said, we must get rid of the euro to save Europe. So name of the game, if we have some kind of a crisis like that, is to basically close the market for three weeks and organize an orderly dismembering of the euro. But to maintain what has been good so far, which is the kind of common market. And it"s a difficult call because the movement towards the euro was also a movement to create a European nation.

And so the institutions today are basically federal in nature. But nobody in Europe has ever voted for them. So to a certain extent, the guys with power in Brussels have not been elected by anybody, and you cannot fire them. So it"s totally Technocratic. So we have a hell of a problem. We should not only destroy the euro, but should move back to what Europe was in 1988 or 1987 before they put all these Federalist legislations in. That is going to be a tall order. But if the euro disappears and Europe has a problem, then the negotiating between the UK and Europe is going to be amusing. Because UK is going to say, look, who are we going to negotiate with?

Finally, on his big picture thoughts ahead of tomorrow"s decisive election:"it"s going to be a close call, a lot closer than people think. And then we have the elections afterwards, which are going to be a total gamble." Gave adds that in a sense Le Pen has already won because the "worst case scenario" for her, the 2022 elections, is still achievable. As for the parliamentary elections, "Le Pen could have anywhere between 40 to 100 MP"s (she currently has two).... which would be a total disaster for the ruling class."

In other words, even if Macron triumphs on Sunday, "the National Front isn"t going anywhere." Furthermore, Le Pen"s niece Marion Le Pen is poised to inherit the mantle of party leadership in time for the next presidential election in 2022. The younger Le Pen, already a French MP, would have a distinct advantage over her astringent aunt:

Marion, she"s very young. She"s 27, 28. She"s an MP in the French Parliament. She"s extremely pretty. And she represents what"s probably very good in the French Catholic Right. She"s very much a Christian person. Very much so. So a lot of people have problems voting for Mrs. Le Pen today. A lot of the Fillon"s elector would have absolutely no problem voting for Marion, you see what I mean? So she has a big appeal on the Classical French Right. Big one. Big one.

His parting words:"be careful. If she wins, you will have a disaster in the lot of the European bond market. Doesn"t mean a total disaster for the good quality companies. But the risk is not on the stock market. The risk is on the bond market. So be careful. Don"t overstay on the bonds in Europe."

While these are the core excerpts from the interview with Charles Gave, there is much more in the full 40 minute version found on RealVision TV.

French Selection Ritual, Round Two: Slightly Premature Victory Laps

Authored by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man.com,

Slightly Premature Victory Laps

The nightmare of nightmares of the globalist elites and France’s political establishment has been avoided: as the polls had indicated, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are moving on to the run-off election; Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s late surge in popularity did not suffice to make him a contender – it did however push the established Socialist Party deeper into the dustbin of history. That was very Trotskyist of him (we can already picture a future Weekly World News headline: “French socialists discover giant alien dust mites”).

Lateral entrants to the business of avenging the disinherited, leavened by strawberry cake.

 

Around three micro-seconds after the election results became known, the entire French and European political elite immediately announced its undying support of Emmanuel Macron, with only a handful of “populist” parties outside of France saying that they were rooting for Marine Le Pen.

Just to clear this up beforehand, Ms. Le Pen may be the terror of the establishment, but she is just as statist as her competition was and is – in some respects probably more so. The run-off election is between two central planners (or at least “third way” proponents), each one of whom believes to be in possession of the “better plan”.

First round election results: the distribution of support between Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Macron reminds us a bit of the 2010 election map of Ukraine, which showed a similar East/ West split (see “Mapping the Conflict in Ukraine” for more details on this). Amazingly, Hamon didn’t even win a single department – click to enlarge.

There is no political constituency for liberty or anything remotely resembling classical liberalism (= libertarianism) in France. Moreover, in view of Mr. Trump’s recent magical transformation from putative swamp-draining rebel to slightly confused neo-con (who urgently needs a compass), it is clearly time to once again focus on the only thing that one can actually hope for in politicians, and that is entertainment value; luckily we have good news on that front.

Given unanimous establishment support for Macron, it was apparently concluded that the 2^nd round voting ritual will be a mere formality, a kind of rubber-stamping exercise for the Brussels-approved candidate. Just to be safe, the French bureaucracy nevertheless mailed two ballot papers each instead of one to several hundred thousand Frenchmen living abroad so they will be able to vote twice.

That  should produce a small haul of fraudulent votes for Macron, as it was decided to simply let the matter rest. Action will only be taken if fraudulent voting attempts are “detected” after the fact, which sounds like a difficult thing to do without Batman (in view of Le Pen’s anti-EU stance, most Frenchmen living elsewhere in the EU are bound to vote against her for personal reasons).

Second-round voting intentions, from the department of reasonable assumptions: after Geert Wilders “lost” the election in the Netherlands by enlarging the presence of his party in parliament by 33%, the  conviction that  Mr. Macron will deliver a Hillary Clinton-type landslide victory has solidified (“it doesn’t matter if the probability is 91%, 95% or 99%” – only climate science dazzles with more exactitude and prescience!). Admittedly, the recent French polls are probably more accurate than the US polls were, but we will still spend most of this post explaining why an upset could happen anyway – click to enlarge.

Confidence that the Brexit and Trump polling failures were non-repeatable one—off events seems indeed quite strong, judging from the party that was thrown in stock markets around the world. Even the sickly looking euro regained its footing.

To this we would point out the following: for a variety of unrelated reasons the euro was ripe for a rally regardless of the outcome of the first round election. Moreover, it simply doesn’t matter what the candidates say they want to do about the euro – not one of them is likely to abandon it.

Without a parliamentary majority it isn’t even possible for a French president to call a referendum on EU membership or the euro, as it would touch on a constitutional issue. We bet that would be just fine with Ms. Le Pen, since going back to the French franc would entail headaches any politician will want to avoid – unless a major crisis forces his or her hand (note: the FN has currently just 2 out of 577 seats in the National Assembly and Macron’s new party has so far not yet taken part in an election).

Buying already overbought and overvalued stocks is a different kettle of fish though – although the relief rally was not really unexpected, it still looks like mindless herding behavior. It makes about as much sense as buying gold due to rising geopolitical tensions, i.e., not much.

French stocks take off, as does the euro. The latter makes sense, the former doesn’t really – click to enlarge.

Money supply growth rates are currently slowing in every major currency area except China. M1 growth was recently still fairly high in the euro zone in absolute terms, but the ECB is beginning to “taper” QE as of this month, so a further slowdown is quite likely.

Narrow euro area money supply aggregate M1 (~equivalent to TMS) – the y/y growth rate has slowed from a high of ~14.5% to ~8.5%, with a further slowdown likely. That is usually not the best time to buy stocks, especially if they have already rallied for a while. Obviously, a Macron victory isn’t going to persuade the ECB to print more money – click to enlarge.

Rise of the Deplorables

The default assumption should be that Macron will indeed win the second round, but he does have some problems that may be masked in the polls by the “Bradley effect”. One advantage of Ms. Le Pen that reminds us a bit of Donald Trump’s campaign is that her voters seem more engaged and less likely to switch sides. The same cannot be said of Macron’s supporters.

Not only Macron’s supporters are less sure of their choice than Le Pen’s: note how fickle Hamon’s voters are. How certain is it that only 3% of them will vote for Le Pen vs. 70% for Macron? What they are telling an interviewer may not really be indicative of where they will put their cross in the contemplative quietude of the voting booth – click to enlarge.

In recent years security, immigration and terrorism have become increasingly important issues. It is fair to say that a great many French voters have by now  migrated closer to Le Pen’s views on these topics (so to speak), in spite of the fact that the population of France once was one of the most tolerant in Europe.

After its election results fell intermittently to a low point from 2006 to 2008, support for Marine Le Pen’s Front National has grown noticeably. There seem to be more deplorables in France than previously suspected – click to enlarge.

That has changed significantly after the big surge in terror attacks over the past year (here is a list of French voter priorities posted by Mish in February; security and terrorism are sharing third place with purchasing power, right after jobs and government handouts). It should be no surprise that the Front National has become a bit of a fan favorite in recent years.

Last week’s terror attack in Paris elicited a comment by Macron that was faintly reminiscent of Marie Antoinette’s idea about people lacking bread. In an editorial for the Guardian he essentially told people to “get used to it”. That may simply have been a realistic assessment, or a less than ideal way of putting it. Still, when emotions are sufficiently stirred up, it may be taken as a sign that he won’t do much about it. That is quite different from Le Pen’s activist attitude.

Le Pen doesn’t seem to consider the problem “imponderable” – she would simply close the borders to immigrants from Isistan. Once upon a time this stance was widely decried as racist, but France has been on the receiving end of numerous terror attacks and many people’s attitudes have changed accordingly.

This doesn’t look like something one would want to get used to.

Macron: Hidden Entertainment Value

It may in this case be to Macron’s advantage that he frequently dispenses fascinating outbursts of verbiage that seem deserving of  being entered into an incomprehensibility competition. He sounds at times as if he has a built-in postmodernism generator, or as if his speech hasn’t been decrypted just yet. People may therefore not be worried too much about what he says, since it is always possible that he has switched to philosophical bon-mot mode, and that stuff is generally beyond the ken of mere mortals.

It is incidentally also the good news we alluded to above, in the sense of entertainment to look forward to. We were previously fairly certain that only Marine Le Pen and perhaps the French Hugo Chavez would be able to deliver a satisfactory performance entertainment-wise. It turns out they have company.

After taking a closer look at Macron’s antics, we realized we had overlooked an incredibly gifted artiste. Because of this exciting discovery we can now look forward to the election with complete equanimity –  any outcome will do. Here are a few remarks by other observers and critics commenting on his rare talent:

François Baroin: “He says nothing about nothing, and probably doesn’t think much more than that about it either.”

Unknown (to us, anyway) observer: “That is to say, a little elusive… it sounded hollow, in my opinion”

Another unknown observer (faintly reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes): “It is the most brilliant encryption system in history.”

Desperate woman standing in a fog bank: “I don’t understand… I don’t understand a word.”

Yet another anonymous observer: “This surpasses everything I could imagine.”

Marine Le Pen, speaking to Macron in a debate: “You have an insane talent, you end up speaking for seven minutes, I cannot even summarize your train of thought, you have said nothing, it is like the absolute void between the stars.”

What is it that so excites and at times perplexes his fans? We give you a few examples below (and will provide proof that he really said those things):

Macron at a feminism conference: “The identity is “A” equals “A”. There exist at least “A’s” and “B’s”. I didn’t want that “A” equals “B”.”

Macron during an interview: “You don’t want to live in a box, do you? I don’t. And so, our life always happens “at the same time”, it is more complex than what we want to reduce it to.”

Macron writing in “Le Journal du Dimanche”: “I have always accepted the vertical dimension, the transcendence, but at the same time, it has to be fully anchored in the immanent, in the material.”

Macron delivering a speech: “I, my life, my memories, they are made of childhood memories of my grandmother and that professor of philosophy, whom I have never seen…  and yet, I have the feeling I know his face.”

Another Macron interview: “What constitutes the French spirit is a constant aspiration to the universal, that is, this tension between what has been and the part of identity… this strict ipseity, and the aspiration to a universal, that is to say, that which escapes us.” [ed. note: “ipseity” = “selfhood” – a term to be found – no kidding – in the “Dictionary of  Untranslatables”;  apparently French deconstructionist philosopher Jaques Derrida used the term ‘ipséité’ frequently in his writings. We incidentally also have to thank Derrida for books like “Specters of Marx” and sayings like “To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend. And lastly, from another interview comes what we would at this stage call Macron’s piece de résistance… something for true connoisseurs, the high point – so to speak the Mount Everest of his pseudo-philosophizing and improbable reasoning. Just a few sentences of oddly poetic nonsense, declaimed with such moving sincerity one sits spellbound as the  magniloquent imagery unfolds – until either the last sentence, or… We made the terrible mistake of watching the facial expression of the TV presenter, who listened to it live when it premiered and managed to preserve a deadpan, slightly bemused expression throughout, with a degree of self-control worthy of a Shaolin warrior monk. We probably sprained something in the process (the septum transversum? If Macron were in the US, we could sue him now).  So here goes, Macron has the word:

“We all have our roots. And because we are all deeply rooted, there are trees next to us… there are rivers, there are fish… There are brothers and sisters…”

Stunning. We have in the meantime found out there is more… the man is a veritable fount of memorable quotes. Here is a video that shows him actually saying all of the above (in French, which somehow makes it even funnier):

The reincarnation of Socrates… or someone like him. Sort of.

What If?

We have to briefly consider what happens if the bête noire Marine Le Pen – unlikely as it seems – manages to pull a Trumpian upset. When Donald Trump won, the big surprise was that risk assets only went down for about an hour and immediately commenced to rally, a state they have been in every since. We don’t believe  situation in France is going to be similar, if a surprise victory is achieved by the apparently greatly feared populist candidate.

The reason is mainly that market participants have decided to celebrate already. Prior to the US election, a mild undercurrent of “he might just pull it off” was always detectable. Also, the markets were a bit nervous, with volatility premiums high until D-day and the market weakening somewhat into election day.

This more recent flipping of the switch from semi-sobriety to full-on party mode is almost disrespectful by comparison. Anyway, it also tells us that the election outcome is widely regarded as predetermined and anything else is therefore going to upset the markets to varying degrees (in the short term).

She looks like she’s about to take off… can she actually fly? Her first round result was the best the FN has achieved in its history (see insert). Oh, and she’s wagging two fingers at once, for extra-emphasis. Finger-wagging by politicians is usually not a good sign, since it is most often employed when talk turns to perfectly harmless voluntary activities that the speaker wants to make illegal or regulate into near-death type catatonic compliance.

Conclusion

This is probably the last time we will write about the French election, unless the unlikely happens somehow. As we said though, that is a possibility that shouldn’t be dismissed. Other than that, we just hope that Macron continues with his creative impromptu wordsmith career.

*  *  *

Bonus Chart: Long Term Approval Bear Market

French presidents seem to have impressed their subjects less and less as time has gone on. Mr. Hollande saw his approval rating tumble to levels so low they were  previously unimaginable; he didn’t even try for a second term as a result. To add insult to injury, at the time his approval rating hit its low it amounted exactly to 100 minus Putin’s approval rating. Wining the French presidency is evidently easier and more fun than actually governing.

As a final aside: five of seven post WW2 French presidents of France were “conservatives” – and yet, France is by many measures one of the most socialistic countries in the EU today, with government spending amounting to a breath-taking 58% of GDP (no wonder they are liked less and less).

The people increasingly disapprove… – click to enlarge.

French Presidential Race: Marine LePen Far Ahead Of Rivals In Secret Polling

An editor at French daily, Le Figaro, has alluded to secret polling data which show the Front National’s Marine Le Pen polling close to 34% among those with intentions to vote in the first round of the French presidential election.

Authored by Damien Cowley,

Surveys in the public domain consistently have populist LePen ahead of her rivals in the first round, at 26-28% of intentions to vote but losing to whichever rival she faces in the second.

A score of above 30% in the first round, however, would significantly boost her chances of continuing to victory on May 7th.

In his recent article on the failing efforts of the media and political classes to thwart LePen’s continued rise, editorialist Ivan Rioufol cites ‘sous le manteau’, or hidden surveys in circulation which show LePen likely to score double her father, Jean-Marie LePen’s 2002 score of 16.86%.

The politically correct ‘Maginot line’ of France’s elites can no longer hold out against the popular anger of the French public, Rioufol writes, arguing that the threats by leftist intellectuals and celebrities to quit the country in the event of a LePen victory are actually boosting her campaign. Likewise for scare-mongering media warnings on a ‘return to the 1930s’.

The French media and political establishment are now openly contemplating a LePen victory, with frequent reference to the Front National ‘at the gates of power’, an eventuality until recently considered impossible.

Outgoing president, François Hollande, who describes it as his ‘final duty’ to keep LePen from winning, and who is actively campaigning with government ministers in Front National strongholds to keep LePen from power, has recently admitted that she may win. Privately, Hollande is said to fear that LePen’s support is under-estimated in the opinion polls and that the momentum of a high score in the first round could make it difficult for any rival candidate to beat her in the second.

In Europe, Winners Are Losers & Left Is Right

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

The Dutch elections on Wednesday have provided a whole bunch of Orwellian narratives. PM Mark Rutte’s right wing VVD party, actually the ‘business’ -or should we say ‘rent-seekers’ in 2017- party, who lost some 20% of the seats they had obtained in the previous parliamentary election in November 2012, down from 41 to 33 seats, is declared the big winner. While Geert Wilders’ very right wing party, PVV, won 25% more seats -it went from 16 to 20- and is the big loser.

Moreover, Rutte’s coalition partner, labor PvdA, gave up 29 out of 38 seats to end up with just 9. That’s a loss of over 75%. Together, the coalition partners went from 79 seats in the 2012 election to 42 in 2017. That’s an almost 50% less. Not that it could prevent Rutte from proudly declaring: “We want to stick to the course we have – safe and stable and prosperous..” Makes you wonder who the ‘we’ are that he’s talking about.

That course he wants to stick to had a finance minister named Dijsselbloem, and his party just lost by over 75%. So he won’t be back. But perhaps the EU can pull another ‘Tusk’, and leave him in place in Brussels as chairman of the Eurogroup no matter what voters in his own country think of him. Still, declaring your intention to ‘stick to the course’ when your coalition has just been sawed in half, it’s quite something.

The only reasons Rutte’s VVD ended up being the biggest party all have to do with Wilders. The anxiety over the election all had to do with polls. Wilders is a one man party and a a one trick pony. If he would leave, his party would dissolve. And his sole ‘message’ is that Islam is bad and should vanish from first Holland and then Europe. He doesn’t really have any other political program points. Ok, there’s Brussels. Doesn’t like that either.

Perhaps that’s why he largely shunned the pre-election debates. Problem with that is, these things attract a lot of TV viewers, crucial free air-time. All in all, since he’s his own worst enemy in many respects, it’s not that much of a surprise that Wilders’ support collapsed, and that’s just if we were to take Dutch pollsters more serious than their counterparts in the US and UK.

Talking of which, according to Rutte, those are the countries where ‘the wrong kind of populism’ has won and delivered Trump and Brexit. And of course there are lots of people who agree with that. What either they, or Rutte himself, would label ‘the right kind of populism’ is unclear. Maybe Rutte himself is the right kind of populist?

The row with Turkey over the weekend must have helped Rutte quite a bit. Not only were his actions in the row met with approval by a large majority of the Dutch population, including just about all other party leaders, the Dutch also got to think about what WIlders would do in such a situation. And there can be no doubt that Rutte is seen as much more of a statesman than Wilders.

Not that the row is over. After Turkey announced yesterday it would return 40 Dutch cows (?!) , today Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu said Europe’s politicians are “taking Europe toward an abyss”, and: “Soon religious wars will break out in Europe. That’s the way it’s going.” There can be no doubt that a shouting war like this with Wilders as one of the participants would take on a whole different shape, and a different choice of words.

What Rutte’s going to do next is form a new coalition, this time not with the left but with the center-right, and no-one will be able to tell the difference. If Dutch, and European, and global, politics have one main problem, it’s that. Left is right and right is left and winners are losers. If a guy like Dijsselbloem can squeeze Greek society dry in his capacity as Eurogroup head, while he runs as a leftist candidate in his own country, and loses hugely, anything goes.

All those who think they can see in the Dutch experience, a sign that Marine Le Pen’s chances in France’s presidential elections in April and May have dropped a lot, would appear to be delusional. Judging from reactions in the financial markets, many seem to be. But Le Pen is much less of a fringe figure than Wilders is, and she certainly wouldn’t shun a debate. It’s true that her Front National is a one-woman operation, bit she has a much clearer political program than Wilders does.

And she doesn’t have an opponent like Rutte, who’s become a formidable presence domestically, as anyone would be who can be PM for many years and not be put out by the curb. The man who should be Le Pen’s main adversary is not; Hollande is out by that curb and doesn’t even dare run again. His Socialist party has become a joke. The next strongest opponent should be François Fillon, but he’s all but gone now he’s been placed under formal investigation.

That leaves only Emmanual Macron, an independent without a party and without a program. In France, you can be elected president in such a situation, but your hand are tied in all sorts of ways, because you need parliament to vote for things.

..the nuances of the French political system put Macron in a spot of bother. The president derives their power from the support of a majority in the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly. Macron was a minister for the Socialist Party government but quit in 2016 to form his own political movement. Now he doesn’t even have a party, let alone a majority. Although the constitution of the French Fifth Republic, created by Charles De Gaulle in 1958, extended presidential powers, it did not enable the president to run the country.

There are only a few presidential powers that do not need the prime minister’s authorisation. The president can appoint a prime minister, dissolve the National Assembly, authorise a referendum and become a “temporary dictator” in exceptional circumstances imperilling the nation. They can also appoint three judges to the Constitutional Council and refer any law to this body. While all important tasks, this does not, by any stretch of the imagination, amount to running a country. The president can’t suggest laws, pass them through parliament and then implement them without the prime minister.

The role of a president is best defined as a “referee”. Presidential powers give the ability to oversee operations and act when the smooth running of institutions is impeded. So a president is able to step in if a grave situation arises or to unlock a standoff between the prime minister and parliament, such as by announcing a referendum on a disputed issue or by dismissing the National Assembly.

So, why does everyone see the president as the key figure? In a nutshell, it’s because the constitution has never been truly applied. There lies the devilish beauty of French politics. A country known since the 1789 revolution for its inability to foster strong majorities in parliament has succeeded, from 1962, in providing solid majorities.

Perhaps those who believe that what happened in Holland is also likely to happen in France are swayed by the notion that both are part of the EU. But they are very different countries and cultures, and different political systems. And Le Pen is no Wilders. She doesn’t say crazy things anymore, she’s cleansed the public image of her party by getting rid of her father, and she keeps any remaining extremists out of view.

There is still plenty suspicion in France about her, and about her party, but there are also a lot of people who agree with a lot of what she says. The perhaps most noteworthy statement she’s made recently is that she would step down if she loses the referendum about membership of the EU she intends to launch if elected president. That should keep Brussels on their toes. Marine means what she says. And a lot of French people may get to like her for that. In a political landscape in which the competition keeps shooting itself in the foot.

Another thing about Le Pen is that her political program contains quite a few bits and bolts that could be labeled leftist; a 35-hour work week, retirement at 60, lower energy prices. It’s just that she wants to reserve these things for the French. Foreigners, especially, Muslims, are not invited. And she is very much opposed to neo-liberalism and globalization:

They’ve made an ideology out of it. An economic globalism which rejects all limits, all regulation of globalization, and which consequently weakens the immune defences of the nation state, dispossessing it of its constituent elements: borders, national currency, the authority of its laws and management of the economy, thus enabling another globalism to be born and to grow: Islamist fundamentalism..

Le Pen’s popularity does not come from an overwhelming innate racism in France -though such a thing certainly exists-. It comes instead from the formidable failure that the country’s immigration policy has been for many decades. At the outskirts of major cities ghetto’s have been allowed to form in which those that come from former French colonies, especially in Africa, feel trapped with no way out. The French tend to feel superior to all other people, and the political system has let the situation slip completely out of hand.

Now France, and Europe is general, will have to deal with this mess. So far, the main European reaction is to turn Greece into a prison camp for a new wave of refugees and migrants. That can of course only make things worse. And it doesn’t solve any of the existing problems. Which makes the rise of Marine Le Pen inevitable.

And Wilders too; he’s the no. 2 party in Holland, because his party won 33% more seats than in 2012 to go from 15 to 20. That 33% gain, versus Rutte’s 20% loss, makes Wilders a loser in the eyes of many ‘relieved’ observers.

Winners are losers, and as is evident in Le Pen’s social policies for the French, in European coalition governments that contain Labor and right wing parties, and in the course of the Democratic party in the US, left is definitely the same as right.

Orwell always wins. Next problem: the actual left are not represented by anyone anymore.

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.

Holland&#039;s Anti-EU &#039;Freedom Party&#039; Boosted As Turkish Tensions Mount

With less than 48 hours until polling begins in the first major European election of the year, Bloomberg reports that snap polls show support for the anti-Islam, euroskeptic Freedom Party of populist Geert Wilders being re-energized after the last few days chaotic events surrounding Turkey.

Just as we warned over the weekend, in the near-term, however, the outstanding question is how will Saturday"s events impact Wednesday"s Dutch general election, and whether the diplomatic clash will boost votes for Geert Wilders. As Reuters notes, "the diplomatic row comes in the run-up to the coming week"s Dutch election in which the mainstream parties are under strong pressure from the far-right party of Geert Wilders."

And this morning, as Bloomberg notes, after politicians on all sides rounded on the Turkish government for dispatching ministers to the Netherlands for domestic political ends on the eve of the Dutch election, Erdogan said on Sunday that the Netherlands would “pay the price” after Rutte’s government denied entry to Turkey’s foreign minister and escorted a second Turkish minister to the Dutch border.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte told NRC on Monday morning, when asked if the chance to play the role of the “strong” prime minister would help him on Wednesday.

“I wasn’t waiting for this... This cost me hours and hours of campaign time. But it’s just my job, being prime minster comes first.”

But as Kees Aarts, professor of political institutions and behavior at the University of Groningen, explains,

While "the cabinet has shown political decisiveness...  when you add everything up, what happened will clearly help Wilders. He wasn’t very visible during the campaign and not very involved. But in the end it’s his main theme that’s at stake now."

A snap poll on the incident by Peil.nl found that 86 percent of more than 2,000 respondents said that Rutte had done a good job during the dispute. However, it also found that Freedom Party voters were fired up, with Wilders supporters saying for first time during the campaign they would “certainly” vote for his party, known by its Dutch acronym, PVV. That could lead to higher turnout among PVV supporters at the election on March 15, according to Peil.nl.

So, as The Express asks (and answers), what will happen if Wilders wins?

Mr Wilders" election would mark Europe’s first political earthquake of the year ahead of the important French and German elections later in 2017. The far-right politician pledges to ‘de-islamise’ the country by closing its borders, banning Islamic headscarves, closing mosques and banning the Koran. He has vowed to take the Netherlands out of the EU as well stopping public money going towards development aid, windmills, the arts, innovation and broadcasting.

But what will really happens if Mr Wilders triumphs in the election next month?

Although Mr Wilders is projected to get the most votes in the election, the PVV will not be able to form a Government on its own. Unlike Britain and the US, the Netherlands is always ruled by a coalition of political parties due to the fragmented nature of Dutch politics. Winning the most seats does not automatically make Mr Wilders Prime Minister because the top job goes to the leader with the most seats in the coalition.

But VVD Prime Minister Mark Rutte has already ruled out a coalition between VVD and the PVV if Mr Wilders wins the election.

"No, we wouldn’t do that,” Liberal Prime Minister Mark Rutte says at news conference in Rotterdam when asked if he’ll co-operate in government with Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party after Wednesday’s election.

Rutte on previous experience in govt with Wilders: “When the crisis was the deepest, he ran away”

Other Dutch parties are also unwilling to form a coalition with him, according to Rem Korteweg, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform (CER).

“The result of that is going to be a political mess after the election,” Mr Korteweg said, noting that there could be political stalemate.

If the PVV is excluded from the coalition, then it will be very large, unwieldy and at risk of falling apart and leading to fresh elections. Even if Mr Wilders is blocked from real political power in the Netherlands, his election would be devastating blow for Europe’s liberal order.

The far-right populist victory could boost the chances of Front National leader Marine Le Pen in the French elections this spring.

It would also be welcomed by Frauke Petry - the woman leading the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) into the German federal elections in September.

Eight Reasons Why The Dutch Election Matters

Submitted by Saxo Bank"s Martin O"Rourke via TradingFloor.com,

• The Netherlands" general election takes place on March 15


• Geert Wilders far-right Party for Freedom expected to emerge first


• Wilders path to premiership likely to be blocked by moderate coalition


• Support for Wilders" anti-immigration, anti-EU stance fits populist narrative


• Key lessons for Europe ahead of French and German elections


• Brussels looking for consolidation after Brexit and Italian referendum rockets

Now what is it about that Wilders fellow that seems so familiar?

If we needed any reminders that 2016 was the year when the anti-establishment phenomena broke through the glass ceiling, then this week"s Brexit-bill debate among the arch-establishment House of Lords institution was it.

The irony of the non-elected house discussing the bill that will eventually pave the way for the trigger of Article 50 before March 31 will not have been lost on many. It was, after all, the protest element of the Brexit vote that saw the UK electorate deliberately snub what their elites dictated they must do and establish the barricades between the establishment and the disaffected.

And that unleashed genie has gone on to cause havoc ever since. The victory of Donald Trump in the US and the rejection of Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi"s constitutional reform referendum in December struck a powerful blow at the heart of the establishment foundations.

Yet, the traffic has not all been one way. Austrian voters rejected the far-right Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache in December in presidential elections, and Marine Le Pen"s efforts to become the next president of France still look likely to be stymied at the second round in May despite a collapse in support for scandal-hit rival Francois Fillon briefly making her the race favourite.

The stage looks set, then. If 2016 was the year of the breakthrough, 2017 could see the status-quo fightback, with Europe likely to form the battleground ahead of pivotal elections. And, while next month"s general election in The Netherlands may not be the biggest showdown of the year, the outcome could set the tone for 2017.

The far-right PVV party, platformed on an anti-immigration, anti-European Union ticket, looks likely to emerge as the biggest party after March 15, but controversial leader Geert Wilders is almost certain to be snubbed when it comes to either the prime minister role or a top ministerial role. Nevertheless, a moderate coalition made up of numerous parties may find itself somewhat hobbled depending on the actual outcome.

We give eight reasons why the Dutch elections matter.

Dreamy Amsterdam could be facing a nightmare.

1. Setting the template (version 2.0)

If Brexit set the template for the anti-establishment mantra in 2016, the subsequent victories of Trump and the populist anti-EU movement in Italy have subtly altered the blueprint. The outcome of this election could see the template take yet another twist with French and German elections to follow.

Like a military campaign, the domino effect of Brexit through to Italy six months later was next to impossible to stem. But with a new year and a new start, there is a different mood.

While a poll of UK voters in December said 47% would still vote leave, 45% said they would go for remain and 8% were undecided. That"s a shift from the 52/48 divide of the June 23 vote and came at a time when the UK consumer was spending and the economy looked robust.

A slump in retail sales for January out of the UK may have shifted that sentiment further after a 0.3% fall dramatically undercut expectations for a 0.9% rise. Add that to a revision of the December slump revised to 2.1% and it is beginning to look like the post-Brexit party and big-ticket item splurge encouraged by the likes of Black Friday could be over.

"There is the feeling that the public brought forward a lot of spending, especially on big ticket items, in response to the weakening in sterling," said Saxo Bank"s forex chief John J Hardy on the February 17 From the Floor. "I think we need to keep an eye on sterling crosses for reaction."

With housing transactions also predicted to fall 11% in 2017, according to research conducted by The Times, this could be a trying period for sterling and UK confidence.

GBPUSD plunged to below 1.24 after the retail data release for January

Source: SaxoTraderGO

Some 15 weeks have also elapsed since Trump"s victory. With the president embarking on a campaign-style approach since his inauguration on January 20, that has led to a standoff with the mass media, a battle with his own judiciary, some embarrassing climb downs in foreign policy and disarray within his own hand-picked team.

The Dutch then have had some nine months to take on board the anti-establishment wave and what it potentially means. That includes the fallout.

How will they react? A reversion to the safety of the centre is a possibility. A lurch even further to the right can also not be ruled out. We"ll know in less than one month.

2. Anti-immigration reinforced

However Wilders" party fares next month, the anti-immigration platform is well established in Europe and looks likely to be reinforced. The UK turned its back on an agreement to take up to 3,000 child refugees fleeing war earlier this month and, though it has faced a backlash, is sticking to its guns.

The UK government"s strategy is twofold. It wants to clip the wings of Ukip (more of that later) and make inroads into the working-class defection from Labour that has alighted on the immigration issue as a rallying cause.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has also bowed to the inevitable and earlier this month set out tough new plans to repratriate asylum seekers designed to speed up the exit of those who have not earned asylum. A new Centre for the Support of Returns to be opened in Berlin is at the heart of the plan and marks a considerable contrast to the open-border policy that defined Germany"s immigration stance in 2015.

With Beppe Grillo"s Five Star Movement party in Italy firmly established on the back of the referendum result ten weeks ago and with the likes of Hungarian premier Viktor Orban threatening to round up asylum seekers and detain them in shipping container camps, there is a dehumanising aspect to the right-wing rhetoric that is frightening.

Wilders incendiary "Moroccan scum" comments on February 19 indicate the latitude that the far right has been granted by a lazy and complacent centre. It"s going to get worse.

However you spin it, there is a reason why thousands of refugees have fled to Europe and are willing to put up with degrading conditions.

3. Le Pen"s moment

Just as Trump was able to jump on the Brexit bandwagon last autumn when his campaign looked like it might be hitting the buffers, Front National leader Marine Le Pen will have her fingers crossed for a strong showing from Wilders party and a potential escalation of tensions on the streets of Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Le Pen"s chances of victory in May are not great but getting through to the final round on May 7 after the initial vote on April 23 would be success in itself and demonstrate that the far-right group is truly established as a mainstream party.

To put that in context, the party has spent almost its entire political life since its formation in 1972 on the fringes of the political spectrum. Founder Jean-Marie Le Pen may have got into a runoff off for the presidency in 2002 but it is only since his daughter became leader in 2011 that the party has really made its breakthrough.

It would be tempting to say that this is due to the new leader softening the party"s stance to become more acceptable, but the reality is a corrupt and decrepit political establishment has made it easy for Le Pen to harvest voters disaffected with the ruling elites. The atrocities in Paris in November 2015 and Nice in July 2016 have bolstered her bandwagon and reportedly made her party the most popular among 18-34 year olds.

The long game remains her strategy. Brick by brick, she"s demolishing the establishment wall.

4. The Merkel paradox

Of all the establishment figures under threat this year, none matter more than the German chancellor. She is the symbol of European solidity, an immigrant champion, a veteran of the international stage and she has demonstrated time and time again that she is able to go toe to toe with some of the most formidable opponents you could wish to encounter, including the likes of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

But, unlike much of the rest of Europe, Germans rather like the current status quo and even the far-right Alternative for Germany Party has seen support slip from around 15% in the summer of 2016 to less than 10%.

The reason for that is not Merkel but rather the rise of a rival within her own coalition, the social democrats" Martin Schulz. Schulz, like Merkel, is a pro-European Union, anti-protectionist who most definitely hails from the left of the spectrum.

The "junior" party in Merkel"s Christian Democratic Union coalition moved ahead in some polls this weekend ahead of the September election. It may be that Merkel"s sudden shift in position on immigration is less to do with the far right and more to do with delineating her platform from that of Schultz.

Merkel may be a politician of principle. She"s also not above opportunism.

And with Schultz breathing down her neck, it is already beginning to look like the greater public-speaking skills of the latter could land him the biggest prize of all come September. In that light, a better-than-expected showing for Wilders" party at next month"s election might tip the fine margins in Merkel"s favour, although it is clearly a double-edged sword and a gamble to change her stance.

Merkel won"t say it of course. But you can bet some of her strategists are thinking it.

5. The French/German bonds spread barometer

The spread in yields between French and German 10-year bonds has become a useful indicator of political risk in Europe.

It ran as high as 72 basis points when the Francois Fillion got himself into a terrible mess over nepotism earlier this month as it briefly threatened to propel Le Pen into the lead. That subsequently came back to the 65 mark after the immediate outcry receded but has once again jumped to 78 basis points on February 22.

This could spread yet further depending on Wilders" showing on March 15 and demonstrates that not only is Germany decoupling from the peripheral economies like Portugal, Italy and Spain but even from a Eurozone-core economy like France, as the latter"s fundamental structural problems combine with political tensions to deepen the uncertainty over its future direction.

French/German 10-year yield spread out to 78 basis points

Source: Bloomberg

6. The far-right splinter

The fate of Ukip should be instructive for all the far-right groups (or indeed any of the extremist movements in vogue) that are currently enjoying their moment in the sun on a platform of anti-immigration.

On the crest of a wave on June 24, Ukip"s progress since has been akin to someone wading through quicksand as the loss of a charismatic leader in the form of Nigel Farage has seen a catalogue of disasters beset the anti-EU party.

The 18-day reign of Diane James was an unmitigated disaster but replacement Paul Nutall has fared little better and has become embroiled in a false claims controversy relating to the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 when 96 football fans died that has seriously undermined his credibility.

Ukip does not yet look like a spent force but with Farage chasing the "dream" in the US, its direction and sense of purpose has ironically been undermined by successfully seeing through the single-issue strategy that gave the party its raison d"etre. With Brexit due to be triggered next month, it"s become a little bit of a rebel without a cause.

The mainstream — read May"s ruling Conservative party — has also stepped into the breach to effectively dilute the Ukip message by taking over some of their policies and pushing the hard Brexit stance that defined Ukip. It"s a mainstream fight back through latching on to policies (a strategy which Boris Johnson unsuccessfully tried to follow through last summer) that could help re-establish the status quo, albeit with a significant lurch to the right.

In the meantime, a key by-election on February 23 in the UK in the Brexit-supporting constituency of Stoke-on-Trent is a key test for Ukip. Nuttall"s party is favourite to take the formerly safe Labour Party seat (the problems that have beset the Labour Party also owe much to the Brexit vote and a lack of direction under leader Jeremy Corbyn) but a Conservative victory would be a remarkable result in the circumstances as a signal of the status-quo rebirth. It could happen.

The lesson for Wilders, Italy"s Five-Star Movement and Spain"s left-wing anti-establishment Podemos are clear. A single cause can most definitely unite disparate elements. But, the achievement of goals or an inability to break important electoral thresholds will unmask tensions. And, as Ukip is discovering, that"s a recipe for disaster.

Perhaps he knew it was a good time to look for something else.

7. The euro to come under pressure

Whatever the outcome of the Dutch election, the euro is likely to come into pressure as volatility stalks the continent in 2017.

The potential crisis in Greece once again, the upcoming French and German elections, the triggering of article 50 next month and the unnerving and unwavering hostility from the Trump administration to all things EU, means that EURUSD in particular is likely to feel the heat.

Trump may be pursuing a weaker dollar policy, but he might not get his wish granted in relation to the euro for some time. EURUSD has faced down the parity challenge on a couple of occasions already in the last few months but with the pair once again below 1.05 this morning, the debate looks set for some invigoration.

EURUSD breached 1.05 Wednesday morning

Source: SaxoTraderGO EURUSD was at 1.0500 exactly at 1037 GMT, February 22.

8. The Trump reaction

The Trump reaction is incendiary enough even when it turns out to be over something that is patently not true such as his ill-researched comment about Sweden at the weekend regarding a security-related terrorist incident that never happened.

It"s not surprising that someone with Trump"s ego then chose to go on the warpath with Stockholm instead of coming clean. Expect him likewise then to react to the Dutch election, especially if it"s another significant blow to the status quo. He is unlikely to let facts get in the way of his agenda either.

If nothing else, Trump will seek endorsement for his selective immigration ban against seven mainly Muslim countries and the opportunity to twist the debate towards the border with Mexico which remains the most controversial pillar of his foreign policy (despite considerable competition).

The oxygen of publicity. Trump can"t resist it — markets will be moved.

That"s the size of the immigration problem in Sweden... no France...i meant Europe. Obviously.