Posted on 12/13/2015 9:50:23 AM PST by Nextrush
We will soon know around 2pm Eastern (8pm in France) who the winners and losers were in the regional government elections.
The National Front is hoping for a breakthrough in northern France led by Marine Le Pen and in the southeast of France led by Marion Marechal Le Pen.
The media and political elites in France have pulled out the stops to attack the FN and put it in a negative light.
Marine Le Pen has been subjected to hostile coverage as part of the media backlash against Donald Trump with attempts to trash Trump's immigration proposals and accuse Le Pen of being like him in a negative way.
Marion Marechal Le Pen has been pictured with her grandfather, National Front founder Jean Marie Le Pen. The media suggesting she is some sort of anti-Semite or racist, charges which have been leveled against him.
France's Chief Rabbi spoke out against the National Front in the last week.
The hopes of stopping the Le Pen sisters are put in the party of former president Nicholas Sarkozy, Les Republicains (The Republicans). In the two regions where the Le Pen's are running, the Socialists are pulled out.
Polling data was put out during the week suggesting the FN may come short of 50 percent (46 percent in the north, 47 percent in the southeast) with Les Republicains winning.
The Republicans are aptly named because they are the fake conservatives of France much like the Republicans are fake conservatives in the United States.
Sarkozy chose the "Republican" label as a means of identifying his party with the notion of a "Republic" in France, a stab at a patriotic image to oppose the FN.
Sarkozy is to the Left of me like the Republicans in this country. When Sarkozy was president, he increased funding for public broadcasting in France as an example.
His party is for the EU and multinational government that may not be in the interest of sovereign nations like having rules not allowing secured borders.
Sarkozy leads 'the Right' in France founded by Charles De Gaulle, who led the "Rally for the Republic" Party decades ago and was the founder of France's "Fifth Republic" established in 1958.
De Gaulle backed out of politics after World War 2, but came back in 1958 amidst turmoil in France, insisting that a new constitution be approved giving him as president strong powers to deal with factional groups of politicians in the National Assembly.
De Gaulle sold out the French colonists in Algeria to the leftists fighting for independence there.
This led to a 1961 coup attempt by rebellious military units and generals in Algeria and an attempt to assassinate De Gaulle in 1963.
After Algeria was turned over to the leftists, many of the colonists came back to southern France and would fuel the membership of the National Front in its earlier years.
The big question is whether the Le Pen women can win after the socialists pulled their candidates out of the race and endorsed the conservatives.
As in this country though, the socialist and the establishment conservative simulations are on the same side. Overtly. The fake right and the sincere left are teaming up against the patriot FN.
Indeed, the political establishment created the best playing field possible to defeat them.
Have met quite a few of these people. The Pied-Noir French have not forgotten DeGaulle's treachery against his own, and are determined to keep France for the French.
They are not "surrender monkeys" as I have seen so many times here.
Results will come in very quickly, we will know minutes after the polls close at 2 Eastern Time. We may tease the French about this or that, but they have an incredibly efficient voting and tabulating system, takes them 20 minutes to count everything. (Helps that the whole country is in one time zone).
And, according to my brother-in-law (French), you MUST present your photo ID.
Could that be Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, and Viktor Orban today?
(Orban is the Hungarian Prime Minister who defied the EU, and immediately put up a border fence.)
The only thing holding the FN back is their founder, Marine Le Pen’s dad, was a definite anti-Semite. So the Jews of France (and others) feel like between a rock and a hard place.
The anti-Islamization attitudes are actually significantly greater in France than what the results will show, due to many refusing to identify with a party that has a nasty past. Nontheless, whatever the result, FN is now the largest party in France, even if the Socialist-Republican (Sarkozy) temporary alliance defeats them.
A link for results, you will have to click each region on the map for them.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/elections/resultats
Click on “Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie” at the top end of the map to see how Marine Le Pen did.
Click on “Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur” in the lower part of the map to see how Marion Marechal Le Pen did.
Canadian elections come in very quickly as well. It helps to have only one race per ballot.
I suspect that they probably begin counting a couple of hours before polls closed and then crank the last hour or two’s worth of votes through immediately after the polls close At least that is how it seems to work up here
It does seem pretty clear that Marine is NOT her father & completely disavows his anti semitic views. If anything, she will be the one who gives French Jews a safe (r) country. What years ago seemed an extreme candidate seems, in today’s world, the candidate of common sense.
France’s far-right National Front storms ahead in French elections
By Alexandra Zavis
Los Angeles Times
December 12, 2015
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/article49508860.html
[snip] Blue-collar workers, bourgeois suburbanites, recent university graduates, retirees back party once on the fringe
At last count, party was ahead of mainstream rivals in 6 of 13 mainland regions, with nearly 28% of national vote
In the 40 years that Joseph Camus has been voting in France, he never considered supporting the far-right National Front party – until now. [/snip]
They are not “surrender monkeys” as I have seen so many times here.
**********************************
The “surrender monkey” (using the term as a particular mindset), now occupies the White Hut.
Voter turnout on the rise in high-stakes French regional election
Sun Dec 13, 2015 1:16pm EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-politics-idUSKBN0TW00320151213
Just in from France24: FN fails in all regions.....
The projections are in, the Republicans won in both region beating the FN with Marion Marechal Le Pen running strongest in the south at 46.5 percent, Marine Le Pen projected at just over 42 percent in the north.
The Uniparties united to deny the FN a win.
French regional election run-off tests far-right strength
Updated: 1:40 AM, December 14, 2015
http://www.todayonline.com/world/french-regional-election-tests-far-right-strength?singlepage=true
[snip] “For me, she is going to win. Maybe it will make all those politicians stop and think,” said voter Evelyne Risselin in Le Pen’s electoral home base Henin-Beaumont in northern France... The outcome will depend largely on what left-wing voters will do after the ruling Socialist party withdrew from the race in the two regions where the FN was performing best - the north where Le Pen is a candidate, and the southeast where her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen is running... “Voters should not be treated like children, nor be terrorized,” a smiling Marine Le Pen told reporters after casting her vote in Henin-Beaumont. The Socialists fear that some of their supporters might stay home rather than go and vote for the party of Sarkozy, who is widely despised by the left... Much attention will also be focused on the northeast Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine region, where the Socialist candidate rejected his party’s call to drop out of the run-offs... [/snip]
Sarkozy feels pressure after election failure
Sam Ball
http://www.france24.com/en/20151207-sarkozy-feels-pressure-after-france-regional-election-failure-national-front
[snip] Since returning to politics as head of Les Republicains a year ago, Sarkozy has gone about stamping his mark on the party. Its name change, from the UMP, came at Sarkozy’s behest and was part of a rebranding exercise that sought to move the party away from the infighting and scandals that had plagued it for years. Sunday’s electoral failure will, therefore, not only be a stick for Sarkozy’s rivals within Les Republicains to beat him with, but a means to call into question the entire direction the party is taking under his leadership... Sarkozy, meanwhile, has taken something of a gamble... Unlike the Socialists, he has refused to countenance pulling candidates out of certain regions in order to block an FN victory... The FN’s success in the regional elections could well provide a springboard for Le Pen to run as a genuine contender in 2017’s presidential vote. Whether Sarkozy will feature among her challengers, on the other hand, is far from assured. [/snip]
Participation up 7% from first round in decisive French regional elections
http://www.france24.com/en/20151213-french-polls-open-national-front-vies-first-regional-win
[snip] President Francois Hollande’s Socialist Party looks set to lose the domination of the regions it won in 2010. Stubbornly high unemployment and a floundering economic recovery have lost the party support across its base. Meanwhile Sarkozy, formerly the indispensible media star of his party, has been a glaring absence on the campaign trail hinting at problems in Les Republicains camp. [/snip]
(not to mention Hollande’s immediate giant tax increase and fed budget cuts)
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