Friday 26th of April 2024
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the craziest election in the world...

french

French voters will go to the polls on Sunday to vote for a new president. The election will have profound reverberations around the world. Will France take a nationalist turn to the right? Will it seek to withdraw from the European Union and restrict immigration? Will a young candidate with a pro-Europe, pro-immigration message convince enough of his voters to actually show up? Will the "French Bernie Sanders" upset the establishment and convince voters that his left-wing populism is the way to go?

Voters will choose between 11 candidates, with four clear front-runners: right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen, independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, center-right conservative François Fillon, and left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Sunday's election will narrow the field to the top two vote-getters (unless one candidate earns more than 50 percent of the vote), who will then go head to head in a runoff election on May 7.

According to polling from the Financial Times, Macron leads the pack at 24 percent, just 1 point up on Le Pen. But Mélenchon, who had been hovering just above the 10 percent mark for months, has seen a surge in popularity of late, bringing him into a tie for third place with Fillon at 19 percent. The polling backs up the consensus narrative out of France that Le Pen and Macron will face off in the May 7 election, but Mélenchon's steep rise over the last month could upset that outcome.

read more:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/french-election-sunday-marin...

 

her love dies under his bombs...

US President Donald Trump stopped just short of a full-throated endorsement of right-leaning French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, but her office expressed dismay on Friday at the prospect that Trump doesn’t appear to be altering course from Washington’s tendency to leave a fingerprint on virtually every major armed conflict abroad.

“It is deeply sad and damaging for peace and stability in the world,” David Rachline told Sputnik of Trump’s recent military forays. Rachline is tasked with leading Le Pen’s campaign to victory, but despite what by many accounts seemed like an alignment of ideologies between the Trump and Le Pen camps, it turns out that may not be the case.

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201704221052873779-love-trump-lepen-sadden...

a bunch of donalds... the media panics.

On the eve of the presidential election in France, the media increasingly repeat the same mantra - "Just not Le Pen." However, columnist for Die Welt Klaus Geiger believes that the defeat of the leader of the National Front won't lead to a happy ending.

"After a victory of Macron or Fillon, France, Germany and Europe in general will win nothing at all," the Geiger wrote. "They will be given five years. Five years until the next French presidential election, in which voters will want to see a proof of why the EU is a better alternative to a national state," he noted.

 

French voters will cast their ballots on Sunday, choosing among 11 candidates registered for the first round of the election. The run-off between the top two contenders is scheduled for May 7.

The four most prominent candidates are far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, head of left-wing political movement La France Insoumise (Unsubmissive France) Jean-Luc Melenchon, the Republican Party's nominee Francois Fillon and independent candidate Emmanuel Macron.

Le Pen is well known as a strong supporter of France's withdrawal from the EU. Earlier, she vowed to start talks with the European Union's partners on France's membership, or otherwise to hold a referendum on the country's withdrawal from the union.

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/politics/201704221052890540-just-not-le-pen/

allons z'enfants...

Election eve in France has left the country on edge, with the result increasingly unpredictable.

Four of the 11 candidates are all within a few points of each other — National Front's Marine Le Pen, En Marche's Emmanuel Macron, Jean-Luc Melenchon from Unsubmissive France and The Republicans' Francois Fillon.

Europe correspondent Lisa Millar spoke to voters at the Barbes Market in central Paris.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-23/what-french-voters-think-about-the...

and the temporary winners are...

Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are leading the first round of the presidential election, according to estimates of results provided by Ipsos-Sopra Steria for France Televisions, Radio France and Le Monde. The final results are not yet known and the figures will be refined during the evening.

read more:

http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2017/article/2017/04/23/em...

 

Macron is the one on the right and Le Pen is the one on the left, in the cartoon above. Macron is a centrist "patriot", Le Pen is an ultra-right "populist"... While macron is ahead in the French media, Le Pen is ahead in the Sputnik news...