They are going after Fillon hard as well, but for different reasons (he wants to fire 500k governmental employees, deep state doesn’t want that). Difference between Le Pen and Fillon is Fillon doesn’t fight back effectively. I like that Le Pen fights back and she got in some great digs at Macron at the debate.
Le Pen might when the first round of voting, she’s currently leading the polls, but is likely to lose in the second round.
Valls is the ex prime minister, not current. It’s inevitable that once the runoff leaves Le Pen and Macron left in the running that the rest of the socialists will endorse and vote for Macron. Half of Fillon’s votes will go to Le Pen and the other half to Macron. He’s likely to end up winning the second round because of this.
What’s interesting about French politicians is that most of them went through the grande ecole system, usually the top 3 and often more than one of them - Hollande went to all 3 (which you could compare to Ivy league in the US). You will find that the politicians and business people are almost all from these schools and sneer at those who are from lesser schools (Sarkozy went to a regular public university, so the elite said he didn’t know how to talk to the state). Macron found the job at Rothschild through the grande ecole network where he worked for and with those who graduated from grande ecoles. They have very powerful networks and the upper echelons of government and business are dominated by them.
Fillon’s great fall from grace goes to this fake job that the wife held (I think it’s around three-quarters of a million Euro that she pulled over several years). The wife may actually end up having to do some time or pay back the entire sum.
Macron....is simply an empty-suit. He has no resume....no background....no real experience at anything.
You mean the ENA or National School of Administration, which is bread and butter head bureaucrat... it is a mafia indeed.