morpeth

What would be his radical policies for the economy, and would he have support of the main parties ? Doe she have plans to address immigration and security issues that would reduce Le Pen's support ? ( I haven't heard many of his speeches, not being in France).

Novocastrian

Well, without any party at all behind him, strong or otherwise, he's set to be the next President. Surely that would be a bit of a change?

Lion in Winter

What sort of change are people in France looking for? "Change" as a word doesn't mean very much without that context. Some change is for the worse, after all.

Annetje

I assume the same change the UK was looking for with the referendum and indeed, it might turn out for the worse. Mind you, don't think the French want to leave the EU, (spoke to a French person who actually wants the whole of the EU to become 1 country).

EuroTrash

Yes some change is for the worse but when there's a general consensus that something is wrong, sometimes you have to accept you will have to try out various new approaches before you find the right answer. The other option is to keep sitting on the fence and not changing anything much for fear of making it worse, which is pretty much what's been going on for decades, and the election has shown that people are sick and tired of it.
The attraction of Macron is that he's young and bold and full of ideas, he "thinks outside the box" - way too far outside the box for me to follow because everything he wants to do seems to involve cutting taxes and increasing state spending so where is the money going to come from. But I suppose the hope is that if he keeps having ideas, sooner or later he might hit on something that does work.

morpeth

Good point.

Chatter Static

Does anyone know if the lists of who "i.e. which elected officials" nominated the current running candidates are available for public viewing?

As I understand it Mairies are a main source of the nominations and it would be interesting to see what areas are more biased in one direction or other.

dmu

I found this link,
Quel candidat votre maire a-t-il parrainé ?
or this one, if you've got time to scroll down the lists!
Découvrez quels candidats à la présidentielle vos élus ont choisi de parrainer

scot47

what puzzles me is this - the PCF used to have a sizeable chunk of the vote. Where has it gone ?

Lion in Winter

Yes, but what is the "it"? "Various new approaches" to what? "Sitting on the fence" with respect to what issue?

It just needs articulating, that's all. Calling for "change" in an unspecified manner leads to politicians doing the exact same thing and capitalizing on it because their various audiences can all feel that the candidate is talking about them, and will address the issues that make them unhappy, without the candidate making any commitments or laying out a specific platform at all. That's what got us Trump.

Lion in Winter

I don't even know what that change was either, tbh. Of the people who voted to leave, issues seem to range all over the place, some of them not even to do with the EU really.

As you can tell, lack of definition drives me mad... We talk about things, and make decisions on things, without any clarity or common understanding.

Chatter Static

Thank You ........

EuroTrash

Well if people could answer those questions and articulate exactly what they think needs doing, then the problem would be halfway solved, but it's not that simple.
There is a general malaise. A feeling - justified or not - that France today is not as good a place to live in as it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. Others may disagree but what I've gathered from talking to people around here is that what's most important to the French is that their town or village, their department, and France itself, should be "bon � vivre", a good place to live - however you interpret that. They don't mind contributing in the form of taxes etc but they want a good deal in return, they want a France where people are treated well and live contentedly and everyone shares the same "French" values. Instead they see rising unemployment, disaffected young people, more crime, more poverty, more friction, more terrorism. They don't like the way things are heading, so they want to stop the rot and get things back on track, but it's hard to be more specific than that. So yes, any politician that promises to restore French values and unite the nation and bring unemployment down and improve social protection, will get support.

New approaches and sitting on the fence - well for instance on the chômage issue: sitting on the fence means making a big fuss about tweaking labour laws to try and encourange job creation but stopping short of anything radical that would cause a backlash, as Hollande did, so unemployment remains just as big a problem. A new approach means Macron's universal income that accepts that full employment is unachievable, so what has to be done is to change the notion that working full time all your life is a sine qua non for living a contented and fulfilled life, and instead the jobs that do exist and the wealth they create should be shared out evenly; or alternatively, Le Pen's protectionist approach that again accepts that creating enough jobs to go round is not achievable, so the French should be given priority.

south_bound

I thought it was Hamon who proposed a universal income, which then became a lot less universal once he was told it would cost to much? and that new idea didn't help him much. I think most people will agree that Macron's policy of reducing unemployment (was it from 10 to 7%?) is a good thing if not very ambitious, but there is no detail on how he expects to do that so how can anyone judge whether they agree with it?

Either option next weekend is a bit of a risk of the unknown and a lot of people will be thinking that the risk of no meaningful change is greater...

InVinoVeritas

A poll today says that 2/3rds of French voters are unhappy that the choice has come down to Macron or Le Pen. What surprises me is the number of people who openly say to me that they cannot bring themselves to vote for Macron. I would have expected them to say that about Le Pen.

I wonder if the forecast of a Macron victory is accurate as they would have had to ask the question before people knew what the choice was going to be.