What is happening with France? Are we in danger of this also?

[JohnSJ]

"A leading French daily has rattled the ruling party and sparked intense speculation about next year's presidential election by suggesting that voters won't come to Emmanuel Macron's aid if he finds himself in a rematch with the far-right.

Votes from the left propelled centrist Macron to power in 2017 in a run-off against far-right leader Marine Le Pen, just as they had helped Jacques Chirac in the 2002 election against Le Pen's father Jean-Marie.

The report in Liberation newspaper, based on accounts from hundreds of readers, said many left-leaning voters would no longer support Macron to prevent Le Pen taking power.

"I've blocked (the far right) in the past and this time it's over," read Liberation's shock front-page headline on Saturday -- a quote from one of the voters who told the paper they could no longer bring themselves to vote for Macron, whatever the cost.

Polls predict the 2022 election coming down to another duel between the two politicians who fought it out on a globalist-versus-nationalist platform in 2017.

But this time, they show Le Pen far closer to the halls of power, with a Harris Interactive poll, which was never published but was leaked to the media last month, showing the National Rally leader taking 48 percent of the vote in a run-off with the incumbent.

A survey by Ipsos-Steria in early February showed that her chances would be significantly boosted by a mass stayaway by left-wing voters in the event she faced Macron.

Following Socialist Francois Hollande's single-term presidency -- which ended in 2017 with him so unpopular he decided not to stand again -- the left is currently not tipped to make the run-off, with its vote split between Socialists, Greens and the hard-left France Unbowed.

- 'Hurt and humiliated' -

Some of Liberation's readers accused the president, who campaigned as a centrist but has been accused of tacking to the right, of acting as a "president of the rich" -- a label dating from his decision early in his presidency to cut wealth taxes.

Others attacked his attempts to get the French to work longer before being eligible for a full pension as well as his crackdown on anti-government "yellow vest" protests in 2018-2019 and his government's tough rhetoric on immigration and radical Islam.

"Left-wing voters feel hurt and humiliated. They feel they are being forced to vote for a candidate who has not respected them," Remi Lefebvre, professor of political science at Lille University, told AFP.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210304-it-s-over-macron-risks-losing-left-in-le-pen-battle

[lagomorph777]

1. Certainly Biden is not tacking to the right. But Manchin/Sinema/Shaheen are a deadly problem.

They seem to be trying to put the GQP back in power.

[JohnSJ]

2. and if that happens, I think the republic is finished. We almost lost it on January 6

[lagomorph777]

4. Exactly. We have to do whatever it takes to get these people to sit down and shut up.

Buy them off with a billion bucks each. I don't care.

[uponit7771]

6. +1, I can't imagine the kGQP letting go the reigns of power if they get it via voter suppression

... and gain back congress we're screwed.

[blm]

3. Russian operatives working both sides.

Increasing resentment on the left against a left of center government while growing and organizing the ranks of the far right extremists.

They are doing it to every nation that exercises democracy.

[uponit7771]

5. Looks like rodent sex similar to what M$M amplified around 2015 about US left. Looks like Macron

... has some stitching to do to beat back this amplification.

[Mike 03]

7. Very important. Thank you for posting.

I disagree that it happens because the centrist moves to the right.

This is why conservatives struggle to make a country ungovernable. This is exactly why. We'll see this again today in the Senate. Just break it so badly that people lose heart and start to wonder why our country doesn't function. Just break it and blame it on the Democrats--like the cynical accusation that the breakdown in Texas was because of the Green New Deal.

So that people who don't pay much attention to politics throw up their hands and say, "This doesn't work. What do we have to lose from moving away from Democracy?"

There are some great books on this, but one of my favorites is Anne Applebaum's new book Twilight of Democracy, but you can really also track this by studying why Brexit happened.

It's not just France. It's Spain, Italy, Hungary, Poland and others.

Too many Americans don't even understand how our political bodies function or why they are failing.

Thanks again for this.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Long before Franklin's "A republic, if you can keep it" became a drinking game, some...

of us were seeing it as a sincere warning.

[Hortensis]

9. A big danger in most democracies is that their far left, those always unhappy

with the choices of mainstream voters, will unite with or otherwise empower the larger, more violent body of RW extremists to overset mainstream majorities.

Our far left is normally too small to do more than wobble the boat a bit, but extremism has been growing on both left and right, with increasing numbers vulnerable to and radicalized by pernicious influences. Only the Democratic Party as a whole remains stable and true to democratic principles. (That's not faith, it's proven.)

But, in 2016 those on the far left, or otherwise radicalized, who refused to vote for Democratic candidates were sufficient to throw our nation to a wannabe dictator and his frothing supporters. It did happen here. Terrifying to think what would have happened if the now openly insurrectionist, Trump-controlled Republican Party had retained control of both house and senate.

Today, for the most part, the far left is still just as dissatisfied with Democrats, some aggressively hostile, as before Trump. While half of the right is waiting impatiently to see the White House captured and Biden and Harris put on trial for treason, and the other half would go along.

[leftstreet]

13. That's certainly not a danger in the US. There is no far left

If you're talking about the people who refused to vote for Hillary - those were swing voters and democrats from her own party. The 'far left' such as it is was never going to vote for her.

[Thekaspervote]

10. "Democracy is fragile." Thx for posting we all need to be aware

There were 81 million of us, 7.5 million more of us than them!!

Voter suppression laws and all it’s up to us to keep democracy alive. It starts right now...the midterms are just around the corner. We cannot let up, ignore what they are doing make a plan of action, volunteer, give what you can and vote.

Think Stacey Abrams..don’t get mad, don’t despair..ACT!!

[JohnSJ]

11. Well said

[Thekaspervote]

14. Thx! Despair is our worst enemy!

Stacey Abrams is my light..seriously. Every time I see her she is nothing but upbeat and positive, always moving forward to the next right thing, despite the mounting crap from the right.

This is what every last one of us needs to do!

Act and act now!!

[brooklynite]

15. I'm not sure a paper with a circulation of 67,238 would be considered "leading".

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. However, it is a leading newspaper in France.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/784974/paid-circulation-volume-national-dailies-by-publication-france/

Ahead of it: Le Monde - centre
Le Figaro - centre-right
L'Equipe - sports-oriented
Les Echos - financial
Aujourd'hui en France - national version of Le Parisien. I don't know it, but it looks mass-market.
La Croix - Roman Catholic

It is the leading left-leaning paper in the country. And will be looked to for left opinions, like, say, The Guardian in the UK.

[DFW]

19. Don't let the circulation figure mislead you.

Libération is highly influential and you can see large numbers of people reading it at any time, in cafés, in the Métro, at airports, on trains, anywhere. I'm in Paris once a week for work (these days more like every 2 weeks), and speak the language.

[boston bean]

17. Already has happened. Guess it could happen again.

[DFW]

18. The French left has always been fractured

The Communists were a major force up to Mitterand's election in 1981, and the main national union, the CGT is still heavily weighted toward them. When the Soviet Union collapsed, and the high-living Stalinist PCF boss Marchais lost a lot of his influence, they faded, but similar-sounding groups have popped up. The PS (Socialist Party) nearly did themselves in during the start of Mitterand's first term, when they went around nationalizing some large private industry and searching departing passengers' pockets at airports. The wealth tax was tightened, and made to kick in at 3 million francs, or a little under $500,000. The economy tanked, people and businesses started leaving France, and Mitterand did a quick 180°. His finance minister, a staunch socialist, nevertheless exempted art from the wealth tax. You see, his dad was an art dealer.

The French far right never used to be a factor, and people used to laugh at Le Pen's father as an extremist crackpot. But the left never united or compromised, and made a total mess when in power. The OP noted that Hollande never even bothered to run for a second term. He had blown it, and he knew it. The center, never much a definable entity in France in the first place, is making its last gasp with Macron, and not getting very far. Mild punishments for attacks by extremist Islamists have only played into the hands of the far right ("see? You need US!" ), whose hate of them is undisguised, and ever more widely shared.

The latest stand of the wealth tax that I could find was the following: Entre 1,3 et 2,57 millions d'euros inclus de valeur nette taxable : 0,7% Entre 2,57 et 5 millions d'euros inclus de valeur nette taxable : 1% Entre 5 et 10 millions d'euros inclus de valeur nette taxable : 1,25% Au-delà de 10 millions d'euros de valeur nette taxable : 1,5%. That means that between €1.3 million and €2.57 million of "net taxable value," it is 0.7%, from €2.57 million to €5 million, it goes up to 1%, between €5 million and €10 million, it is 1.25%, and above that, it is 1.5%. Needless to say, plenty of French of moderate wealth have found a way to declare much of their wealth as "art," and many others have simply moved to neighboring countries. Taxing people in a country with taxes as high as they are in France was never going to sit well with people who busted their asses to amass a modest fortune like that. "We didn't get you bad enough the first time, so we are coming to get you again." In a country with far too many bureaucrats that enjoy even more privileges than their German counterparts, that doesn't sit well--except with the bureaucrats, of course. France has far too many of them, and they produce nothing except paperwork. They, too, are rich fertilizer for the far right.

The left is still made up of a number of factions who all know they are right and everyone else is wrong, and never compromise. Macron, who could have picked up on this and presented a real united, appealing center, incorporating the more moderate factions of the French Left, instead saw a threat in Marine Le Pen (not entirely wrong), and apparently thinks his best shot is to sponge up her voters instead of those of a weak, fractured left. This gamble, so far, anyway, appears not to be working, and instead of solidifying support for him, seems to be driving French voters to the extremes.

If this trend continues, keeping in mind France's one-two election system (everybody runs in the first round, and two weeks later there is a runoff between the top two cndidates), Le Pen will end up as France's first modern far right president. Macron is actually not a bad guy, is the first French president since Giscard to be fluent in English, and is definitely an internationalist. But he hasn't found the magic solution to make France run smoothly. Of course, no one else since Napoléon I has done that, either, so it's not like he is the first to stumble. Giscard came close to being the first, but he stumbled, too, making way for Miterrand, who, of course, stumbled.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

20. K&R. Thanks for that review, DFW.

KY.........

[DFW]

21. My first visit to France was as a teenager in 1968

That was one hell of a year to be introduced to the place, too!

After 50 years of constant visits, you start to get to know the place.............