By Stephen L. Hall
We interrupt your regularly scheduled stream of consciousness with topical observations regarding events unfolding in Europe, particularly the elections in France. Rather than compete with the news of the day, let us examine what is actually happening, not just what we’ve been told.
First, understanding the dynamics of the French election which is a preliminary and runoff election if the preliminary does not generate a clear majority winner. In other words, if one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, then the election is done, a winner declared. Otherwise the top two candidates get to have a runoff and all the lower level candidates are out of the running.
That being said, the more you look at the French election, the weirder this election appears to get. But, before we get into all of that, let us examine the results.
Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist, received just under 1/4 of the votes at 23.8 percent, followed very closely by Marine Le Pen, a National Front candidate with well over 1/5 of the votes getting 21.5 percent.
But it is thought that Le Pen’s chances of winning the second round are limited as supporters for Republican candidate Francois Fillon, who conceded but has gained 19.9 per cent of the votes, will support Macron.
However, far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who gained 19.4 per cent, refused to concede until the final results of first-round vote were announced.
So, what makes the results so foreign to everything before and a complete upheaval of French and European politics? To a struggling European Union, this election really signals the unraveling of the fabric of their system on many levels and on many fronts in a very unpredictable fashion.
Start with the fact that neither of the winning, and by winning I mean runoff candidates, are from the major parties. “It signals a stinging defeat for the scandal-hit Fillon and Socialist Benoit Hamon, meaning neither of France’s mainstream parties will be in the second round for the first time in 60 years.”
The press is touting that the ‘centrist’ candidate will win the runoff in a hands down blowout because they with throw their collective 39.3% of the vote behind Macron with the “right-wing” Republican party having already endorsed Macron over Le Pen.
Just what is so ‘centrist’ and ‘independent’ about Macron that he is the left and right’s collective bulwark against Le Pen? “Macron, a 39-year-old who had never before stood for election and only started his independent centrist movement 12 months ago. . . .”
Macron, “despite being a former socialist finance minister[,] is standing a centrist independent candidate, who counts former US President Barack Obama as a supporter.” That’s right, a socialist, supported in his ‘centrism’ by moderate centrists like Obama! That is like Bernie Sanders or Ralph Nader being the ‘moderate’ candidate here in America.
It is also the equivalent of said far left ‘moderate’ candidate being endorsed by both the Republicans and Democrats in their brand new one year old party. We know it is ‘centrist’ because it has it in the name, right?
Imagine an election where socialist Bernie Sanders had decided to start his own party rather than seeking the Democrat nomination, an that because of Hillary’s endless scandals, Democrat voters in America actually showed some standards and refused to vote for her; while rino-Republicans were so disenchanted with their leadership that they also were also willing to vote for Sanders rather than any conservative (pretty much what one would expect if their was no Trump).
So, having ringing endorsements from both the left and the right, without whose scandals and support Macron’s rise could never have happened, just how is he ‘independent’? If elected he will owe his position to them.
Add to this mixture Le Pen, who also comes out of nowhere to challenge the major parties from a minor nationalist party. What single issue could drive so many people into a party who’s rallying cry is simply what every nationalist proclaims in one form or another: France for the French?
It is the connection of two issues, and decades of frustration and rising anger in the general populace.
The first issue is the French echo of ‘Brexit’, a.k.a. ‘Frexit’, Le Pen’s rallying cry to have a referendum on whether France should remain in the European Union, or go their own way the same as the United Kingdom.
The other major issue is intimately connected to the first: immigration, the issue of invaders pouring into their country from the middle east and Africa of Muslim men and the resulting increases in lawlessness, terrorism, violence, and intolerance which makes the French people feel like they are being attacked by their own political leaders.
The open border immigration nightmare which the socialist elitists propagate in America has been implemented even more extremely across the pond in Europe. An impoverished Greece is collapsing under its weight, the traditionally poor countries like Italy are struggling from the financial and social strain, traditionally low crime countries like Norway, Sweden, & Germany are seeing massive surges in ethnic centered violence.
France has experienced more than its fair share of terrorist attacks with people gunned down in the nightclubs and streets. Chronic unemployment and welfare dependency plague the immigrant communities which often refuse to assimilate or change. Eighty percent of the invaders are military aged men, with the mentality that they have been invited to Europe to be given all kinds of free stuff.
But the European media keeps pretending that they are at a complete loss to understand the reasons for the surge in the numerous nationalist movements growing across Europe in every country. They resort to calling those proponents of stopping the flood of invaders: racists, fascists, haters, xenophobics, and what ever other vile name pops into their heads.
The European media is willfully and obstinately in denial of the reality these people are seeing in their streets every day. The media, and their pals the politicians, have lost all credibility. Once credibility is this far lost, all bets are off. This is why the media was wrong about Brexit, wrong about Trump winning, and now they assure the people of France that Macron is a shoe-in and Le Pen doesn’t stand even a remote chance of winning in the runoff.
Of course, a few months ago, neither Macron nor Le Pen stood even a remote chance of winning.
Media is influence. Until it loses credibility. Then it becomes a counter-indicator. Who will win in France? That may very well depend on the level of violence in the streets and whether the people are as fed-up with the media and government as they so appear to be.
