/ world today news/ If the presidential elections in France were held right now, the current owner of the Elysée Palace would lose his seat. At least that’s what recent polls show. And the leader of the ratings is a politician who has been repeatedly accused of pro-Russian sentiments – Marine Le Pen. How so?
French pension reform is likely to have the most direct impact on the distribution of political power in the country in the very near future. And this despite the fact that Macron and company are forcing this reform on the people with all their might – under the obligatory remarks about democracy, freedom and other achievements of civilization.
A direct consequence of the reform was the drop in the ratings of all those who push it, and in the first place – of the President of France. At the beginning of April, the “Alab” Institute, commissioned by the popular news channel BFM, conducted a survey of public opinion and made sure that if the presidential elections were held today, Marine Le Pen would win them. Both the first round and the second. This was a “shock” for the French (according to the journalists of the publication).
In the West, it is customary to attach great importance to such surveys, and the sample of participants is not random at all, but taking into account gender, age, profession, social status and even place of residence. Those who take part in the survey must ultimately represent society in miniature. And the fluctuations in their moods, which are carefully monitored by sociologists, should show what we should ultimately expect from society as a whole. Where the mechanism should be adjusted one way or another, which groups should be influenced to legally guarantee the desired result of the vote.
After all, whatever they talk about in France about democracy, equality and other charms, here the places in politics are strictly distributed. Anna Marine Le Pen – whatever reasonable programs she proposes and whatever she does – is assigned a purely marginal role.
She is meant to be a scarecrow, who at some point will surely be presented to the voters and told: “You don’t want that horrible Le Pen to win, do you? Then vote for… Well, let’s say Macron. Instead of Macron, there may be another figure, more or less insignificant, it does not matter: the main thing is that he is promoted as a candidate and supported with all his might.”
The manipulation described above may seem primitive, but primitive manipulations work best. Besides, the French are a deeply bourgeois people, any extremes disgust them. And the French media is very good at sticking exactly these labels that emphasize the extremes and cause rejection among the local electorate.
The far-right, extreme nationalist was friends with Putin, and if she wasn’t, she’d still be bad, and remember her fascist father Le Pen? And all this is repeated in millions of ways, processing the voter. The system must work flawlessly – and if even a hypothetical study unexpectedly reveals that the outcome may not be what the collective elites would like, it becomes food for thought.
Because time, you know, is running fast and the 2027 election is fast approaching. What if the voters decide to pull a surprise there, too?
There is nothing special about the survey itself, it is formulated very clearly. If the first round of the presidential election were now with the same candidates as last year, Marine Le Pen would win 31%, Macron only 23% and the left-wing politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon would win 18.5%. In other words, first and second place in the presidential race will be distributed in a completely different way.
Apart from their own voters, about a quarter of those who in the reality of 2022 would vote for Eric Zemmour, Valérie Pecres and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, would vote for Le Pen. In addition, it appears that Marine Le Pen has improved her position among all categories of the population, including pensioners and residents of large cities, who traditionally do not like her very much.
As for Macron, his own voters would vote for him again, and not all, but only 73%. In the second round, his position would improve, but it still wouldn’t help him because 55% would vote for Marine Le Pen and only 45% for him. At the same time, 10% of those who voted for him actually admit that they would now vote for his rival.
In addition to questions about the presidential election, Elab also addressed questions about the election of a legislative body. It turned out that the coalition of leftist parties “Nupes” would get 25.5% of the seats in the National Assembly, Marine Le Pen’s National Unity party a little less – 24.5%, and the centrist alliance, which includes the party of the current president – 21.5%. The remaining seats will be distributed between representatives of the Republican, overseas and regional parties.
Curiously, even in this hypothetical scheme a system of counterweights is visible.
The improvement in voters’ attitudes towards Marine Le Pen personally did not extend dramatically to her party (which has been led by 27-year-old Jordan Bardel since last year) and did not lead to her landslide victory. In other words, even if we assume that Marine Le Pen somehow succeeds in taking Macron’s seat, she will have to deal with a parliamentary majority that opposes her.
However, pundits are already scratching their heads over who is to blame and what to do as French voters, it turns out, would overwhelmingly want to back Marine Le Pen rather than Macron, who wants to make them work for two more years. Even with the number of publicists of all ranks working for the president, there needs to be at least some accomplishment, at least something that can be presented as an accomplishment. For example, they raised the retirement age, but in foreign policy, France is a value that is also taken into account.
Observers have long noted that the worse things are for Macron at home, the more willing he is to go on a foreign visit somewhere far from his homeland. Now his passion for travel has taken him to China, where he is on a three-day visit.
The goals, in addition to the political ones, are to put pressure on China to influence Russia in a way that is beneficial to collective Europe – and quite pragmatic: the president is accompanied by heads of French enterprises, including Airbus, Danone, Alstrom and Veolia. A number of promising contracts have been signed, meaning increased profits, new jobs and generally favorable newsworthy developments. And then, you see, the French will get tired of buzzing and striking, they’ll grumble and put up.
And even if they do not reconcile and the rating drops to zero, it means nothing for Macron: until 2027, he will still remain president. And you can also remember the old French proverb – “After us and a flood”. Let the successor rake up the inherited problems.
Translation: V. Sergeev
Subscribe to our YouTube channel:
and for the channel or in Telegram:
#France #takes #revenge #Macron #raising #retirement #age
