SWMBO and I are suitable objects for mockery by Joe Scarborough. We speak French, are proud of that and are correctly to be described as Francophile. We subscribe to TV 5 Monde and watch it a lot. IMO Mr. Jefferson was correct when he remarked that all civilized people have two languages, their own and French.
We were watching the election extravaganza on TV 5 on Sunday when the polls closed in France. They all closed at the same time, 8 PM EDT. Within 30 seconds the network announced the outcome and the victory of Emanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. Evidently the French have the whole country wired together in such a way that reporting is instantaneous. There were a few precincts/districts/whatever not reporting but only a few. I presume these are the result of overseas voting or something similar. It was a remarkable demonstration of highly effective electoral administration. Turnout was reported at 78%. This was also remarkable although the French media seemed to think it was low.
There were 11 candidates. Some were a little silly when viewed from outside the system. There was one man who ran from the Atlantic end of the Pyrenees Mountains. This is a charming region but not likely to serve as a national political base. And then there was Francois Fillon, a former prime minister and centrist who went down in a classic political mess caused by his own foolishness in hiring his wife and son for "no show" government jobs. H probably would have won without that.
The two winners are fascinatingly un-American:
Marine Le Pen, the daughter of an old combatant of the Algeria War. He was a paratroop intelligence officer in the Battle of Algiers and evidently is not a "people person." He founded a relentlessly nationalist, anti-Muslim, isolationist and xenophobic political party. Le Pen received 37% of the working class vote. Her support is concentrated in the economically devastated industrial north and in the sunny south where people are faced on a daily basis with what many see as a demographic and culture menace across the Mediterranean Sea. Le Pen was raised in a privileged way with attendance at elite schools and residence in elite neighborhoods but that does not seem to lessen working class support for her. She is a very considerable orator but the other candidates are rapidly closing ranks against her and telling their supporters to vote for Macron.
Emanuel Macron is 39 years old, a former investment banker, finance minister and a graduate of the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA). He is pro-EU, pro-immigrant and a movie star or shirt ad model type. the most interesting thing about him is his marriage. His wife is 24 years his senior. She was his high school Latin and French literature teacher at a Jesuit school in Amiens. He was 15 when they became "an item." She divorced her first husband to marry Macron in 2007. She has three children by her first marriage. They live with the Macrons. Interestingly the French are simply not interested in his private life. I remember the case of a pretty blond teacher in the NW of the US who fell madly in love with a 14 year old boy in her class. I seem to remember that she was a phys ed teacher. She eventually went to prison as a child molester. They married after she served her sentence.
This illustration of the difference in attitude toward life between most Americans and the French is striking this matter. Mme. Macron will probably e the first lady of France. pl
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/24/europe/french-presidential-election/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Macron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Le_Pen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_nationale_d%27administration
Patrick,
There are polls that show Le Pen in the lead by a small, but statistically significant, margin. Apparently these polls have been suppressed by the French media.
This is what was done with Trump in addition to obviously flawed methodologies designed to make Clinton look like the winner with a high probability. I don't know enough about France to evaluate the quality of the polls predicting a Macron victory, but, on the surface, it looks to me like a repeat of the techniques that failed to work in the US; techniques being information ops using cooked polls to diminish turnout for non-Borg favored candidates.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | 27 April 2017 at 10:21 AM
Replying to Col. Lang,
We can probably assume she was still his teacher when the affair started. But in France, a sexual relationship between a teacher and a student who is above the age of consent is punishable only if it is shown that the teacher actually _abused_ his/her authority as a teacher. I wonder if this has to be proved in a US court as well.
Posted by: Dante Alighieri | 27 April 2017 at 10:28 AM
Col.,
Has the warning from Patrick Calvar from 2016 changed anything in the French election? I assume the underlying tension may account for La Pen's showing in the latest round?
Posted by: Fred | 27 April 2017 at 10:34 AM
The age difference is clear. The position of authority is also clear. But did she _abuse_ her authority, as required by the French penal code? Under French law, there is no case if the alleged victim, Macron, says she didn't. Would there be a case in the USA? (And if yes, should there be?)
Posted by: Dante Alighieri | 27 April 2017 at 10:43 AM
All:
The programs of Deep France candidates
https://atelier.leparisien.fr/tableau-de-bord-presidentielle-2017/programmes
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 27 April 2017 at 11:12 AM
There is indeed a huge pressure against LePen from EVERY media and new judicial threats to the FN about like was done for Fillon.
It seems "the plan" was an underhand favor for the FN in the first round because it is the softest adversary in the second round.
There is also a lot of pressure against abstentions which would appear to actually be the "majority party" :-)
This video (in French) from an humorist boasting of the abstentionists majority has been censored by France Inter and he resigned from his regular contribution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUvmE6pEgLs
Posted by: jld | 27 April 2017 at 12:34 PM
I'm with you.
http://nonalignedmedia.com/2015/11/is-the-migrant-crisis-part-of-a-zionist-plot-against-white-europeans/
Posted by: YT | 28 April 2017 at 02:12 AM
Slightly off topic but in Ivanhoe Wamba (the witless)has a rant on language and Saxon vs. Norman/French words, see portion quoted at the link below:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2826829
Posted by: Tosk59 | 28 April 2017 at 02:29 PM
Depicting Macron as a caniche of the banksters, as many do, including here, seems to me false. True that he worked in the "industry", as indeed did Theresa May. But he is also the son of a provincial bourgeois family of doctors from Amiens, and thus has a good grounding in what those people think. Radical change would hurt them a lot.
He is also intelligent, young and extremely ambitious. It is unlikely that he would go for what can't be done, as Sarkozy did. Not that I think that any politician in France is really Thatcherite, as Fillon is depicted (he is merely conservative, not a radical conservative). Advancing France's position, particularly economy, requires considerable subtlety. The tendency of the French to prefer a stable, permanent job, with lesser income, over a higher paying but more mobile employment, has to be harmonised with the way western economies are going. I'd give Macron a greater chance of achieving that than anyone else. But of course he may give up, and look to his own personal advantage.
Posted by: Laguerre | 28 April 2017 at 03:36 PM
It was a long time ago. The relationship has succeeded. Is it really important, other than for Anglo-Saxon prudes? It reminds me a lot of the lengthy discussions about whether transgender people should be allowed in women's toilets. Yesterday I saw more women go into the men's toilet than men, in our institute. If you need a cubicle, you go, rather than wait.
If it were a real case of snaring the youth, I would agree. But it isn't. The relationship has lasted.
Posted by: Laguerre | 28 April 2017 at 04:12 PM
On the subject of the English language and why it spread, I would say that the east of England is ethnicly Anglo-Saxon (including me), with some Viking penetrations in the north, but the west is not. Of course there is the question of whether it was men arriving, who then married local women.
As to why the English language succeeded, it is complicated. Imposed, elite, languages can succeed, as with Arabic in North Africa. Arabs were never the majority, even after the Hilali invasions. Yet they speak Arabic, and Berber is a local dialect.
There were never enough Normans to overturn the language. Chaucer's English is pretty incomprehensible, but it is visibly English. That's the way things went. English survived, and Norman French didn't.
Posted by: Laguerre | 28 April 2017 at 05:10 PM
Laguuerre,
Wasn't Macron finance minister recently and a senior member of Hollande's staff before that? In a US type election he would be hounded mercilessly over both rolls. Will they actually affect voter behavior in this election?
Posted by: Fred | 28 April 2017 at 06:08 PM
A good article on the influence of Brigitte by the Borgist Guardian newspaper.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/28/brigitte-macron-ever-present-beside-frances-presidential-hopeful
Posted by: Sam Peralta | 29 April 2017 at 02:44 PM