La Penn could easily become another Donald Trump on the world stage now, but why?
I think "WHY?" is the most important thing here. The main reason is Putin preventing Sunni Muslims in Syria from living there peacefully with an elected ruler they want. If you see Putin the nuclear blackmailer as the actual cause of Trump and La Penn because of what has happened in Syria because of him, then you understand why the populist movement towards fascism is the way it is. The refugees and also the Sunni terrorists upset with the world for not stopping Assad from killing 500,000 mostly civilians and scattering primarily millions of Sunni Muslims escaping death at his hands all over the world are directly caused by the nuclear blackmailer, Putin. (with help from Iran and Hezbollah which is also funded by Iran.)
begin quote from:
French
voters cast their ballots Sunday in the first round of a presidential
election that may be a litmus test of just how influential the strains
of populism and nationalism in Europe have become. Polls opened Sunday
at 8 a.m. local …
France Votes In The First Round Of Its Historic Presidential Election
The high-stakes vote could predict where the rest of Europe is headed.
X
French
voters cast their ballots Sunday in the first round of a presidential
election that may be a litmus test of just how influential the strains
of populism and nationalism in Europe have become.
Polls
opened Sunday at 8 a.m. local time for the first-round vote that will
whittle down the field of 11 candidates. Unless one of them wins more
than 50 percent of the vote, the two top candidates will face off in a
second round on May 7.
Preliminary
results of the vote are set to be released just after 8 p.m. local
time, with official tallies to come later in the night. The turnout
figures, as of early evening, were down around one percentage point from
the 2012 election.
French
citizens abroad also voted Sunday, as images showed long lines at
polling stations in a number of major cities across the globe.
In
the days prior to the vote, four front-runners emerged in the tight
race to succeed Socialist François Hollande and become France’s next
leader. Center-left Emmanuel Macron and far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen were leading in the polls at 23 percent and 22 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, François Fillon and Jean-Luc Mélenchon hovered between 19 and 20 percent.
POOL New / Reuters
France
finds itself at somewhat of a crossroads in its political history.
Working-class voters are struggling with high unemployment and an
economy that hasn’t fully recovered from the European debt crisis.
Several French cities are reeling from recent deadly terrorist attacks.
(A Belgian who claimed allegiance to the so-called Islamic State killed one police officer and injured several more Thursday night on Paris’ Champs Elysées. French authorities foiled yet another attack in the city of Marseille last week.)
Security
fears loomed over France on Sunday as citizens voted, and a polling
station in the eastern town of Besancon was evacuated after reports that
a stolen vehicle was abandoned nearby with its engine still running.
The
threat of terror, along with lack of jobs, have fueled distrust in the
government and reinvigorated a vicious debate about immigration and
national identity.
The vote is just as much a test for the future of Europe. Compounding France’s internal challenges are the rise of populism and
the rejection of establishment politics in places like Britain and the
United States. Trust in the European system has eroded, and proposals to
depart the European Union have become en vogue for populist candidates
across the continent.
GEORGES GOBET via Getty Images
Amid these larger challenges, the French election has also been marked by scandal, surprises and upsets at every turn.
First,
Hollande announced he would not seek re-election. Then, former
President Nicolas Sarkozy failed to win his party’s nomination when
Fillon, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2017, beat him in the
primaries.
The
conservative Fillon was a likely front-runner, appealing to right-wing
voters with a pro-business and socially conservative platform mixed with
anti-immigration and anti-Islam views. But a series of scandals,
including allegations Fillon had paid his family members to work as
parliamentary aides, caused his support to plummet.
As Fillon’s star faded, Macron’s
rose. A relative political novice, Macron founded his own political
party, En Marche! (which translates roughly to “Onward!”). After leaving
investment banking in 2014, he served as Hollande’s economic minister
until deciding to run for office last year. Unlike Le Pen, Macron is
pro-E.U. and pro-immigration.
HuffPost France
For Le Pen, the election is the ultimate test of her efforts to bring the extreme-right National Front into the mainstream.
Le
Pen took over the party’s leadership from her father, Jean-Marie Le
Pen, and has worked hard to clean up its image. She remains vehemently anti-immigration and has vowed to hold a referendum
on France’s membership in the European Union if elected. Le Pen is also
an open admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin. During a visit to the Kremlin last month,
she called sanctions against Russia “silly” and reiterated her desire
for closer ties with Russia. Faced with declining polls in recent weeks,
Le Pen has made a sharp turn to the right and intensified her
anti-immigrant rhetoric.
POOL New / Reuters
For
months, polls have been leaning in favor of a runoff between Le Pen and
Macron, putting Le Pen’s presidential dream within reach. And she’s
managed to harness the youth vote: An Ifop survey last month revealed that 39 percent of French voters between the ages of 18 and 24 back her.
But the far-left Mélenchon, 65, has thrown a major curveball by soaring to prominence in the final stretch of the race.
A
open admirer of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Chinese
communist leader Mao Zedong, Mélenchon spent decades in the Socialist
Party before forming his own party, La France Insoumise (“A France That
Won’t Bow Down”) last year.
He
views himself as a patriot who wants to end austerity and boost the
economy with a giant stimulus package while also reducing the workweek
to 32 hours. Like Le Pen, he opposes E.U. and various other
international institutions, including the World Trade Organization.
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