French presidential vote - they're off and running!

'Get Lost' Hundreds Shout During Sarkozy's Election Campaign

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229509.html

"French President Nicholas Sarkozy hides in a bar to escape from hundreds of angry protesters who booed him during an election campaign in France's southwest Basque country. Shouting 'Sarkozy, president of the rich' and 'Sarkosy get lost!' the protesters chased him into the Bar du Palais in central Bayonne where he was campaigning for reelection in the city on Thursday.."

Gaddafi ' Contributed $50 M To Sarkozy's 2007 Presidential Election Fund

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/12/gaddafi-contributed-sarkozy-...

"Damaging new claims have emerged about the funding of Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign and his links with former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi emerged. The French investigative website Mediapart claims to have seen a confidential note suggesting Gaddafi contributed up to $50 M to Sarkozy's election fund five years ago.

Similar allegations emerged a year ago when Gaddafi's son Saif al Islam claimed Libya helped finance the 2007 campaign and demanded the French president, who led the war on the Libyan leader, return the money. The latest allegations come at a crucial time for Sarkozy who is seeking a second term in office in a two-round election in under six weeks..."

Make big loan then have the lender murdered. Here's hoping Mossad's little French President loses as a result of this..

If like me your French language skills suck, "France 24" is a mainstream French TV news site with services in English.

The election news page is here

DaveW wrote:

hence the very strong 1st-place showing of Francois Hollande, the ex Socialist party secretary, a moderate and sort of the Brian Topp of the party.

Very much the Brian Topp. Never elected to anything. Likely to become President of France. Hmm . . .

JKR wrote:

Opinion polling for the French presidential election, 2012

The last 7 polls by 7 different pollsters have Hollande beating Sarkozy in the 2nd round by at least 54-46%.

Here's hoping for more momentum for Jean-Luc Melenchon!

It would be helpful to see Sarkozy defeated

dp

Ken Burch wrote:

M. Spector wrote:

Quote:

Left Front demands include better pensions, a rise in the minimum wage, freezing rent levels, and a legally enforced maximum income for French residents. Their programme calls for strict limits on the use of temporary work contracts, building social housing, opening hospitals rather than closing them, high taxes for the rich, as well as the setting up of a Ministry of Women’s Rights, a welcome to immigrants, and a thorough reform of the parliament and presidency. In foreign policy, the Left Front demands a renegotiation of European economic treaties in order to defend public services, withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan and withdrawal of France from NATO. There are good reasons why the Front provokes widespread enthusiasm. Positive also is the idea that class struggle is important and a mass fightback need to be organized.

But Mélenchon’s mix includes ideas which are far from revolutionary. Just recently, he expressed his satisfaction that the Indian Army had chosen to buy dozens of fighter aircraft from France. He claims that the French Republic is not imperialist, but something to be proud of...

[url=http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/international/15660-throwi...

So, Melenchon's bad position on one issue outweighs all the good his candidacy is doing?

I never said that, and neither did the article in Countercurrents. Nor do I believe that. I just think that uninformed, mindless cheerleading ought to give way to an informed and balanced view.

Ken Burch wrote:

OK...but if you read the article closely, you'd have noticed that it was written by a supporter of the AntiCapitalist Alliance, a party that has gained no traction whatsoever in this campaign, and isn't going to.

He's not just a supporter; he's a member. And he's far more critical of his own party's campaign than he is of Mélenchon's!

And have no fear: Mélenchon's first-round votes are all going to end up going to the Blairite "socialists" anyway.

M. Spector wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

OK...but if you read the article closely, you'd have noticed that it was written by a supporter of the AntiCapitalist Alliance, a party that has gained no traction whatsoever in this campaign, and isn't going to.

He's not just a supporter; he's a member. And he's far more critical of his own party's campaign than he is of Mélenchon's!

And have no fear: Mélenchon's first-round votes are all going to end up going to the Blairite "socialists" anyway.

 

That's where the votes of the AntiCapitalist Alliance will go as well.  That's simply the way that French presidential politics goes.  I believe Melenchon has proposed a total rewrite of the constitution(to the point where France would end up in the Sixth Republic and didtch the Fifth).  Would you prefer that everyone to Hollande's left BOYCOTT the second round of the election?  All that would do would be to give Sarkozy re-election by default...and history proves that election boycots rarely, if ever, lead to genuine popular uprisings.

The point is, the higher Melenchon's vote total goes in the first round, the more this will push Hollande into pledging to a genuine radical programme in exchange for the votes of Melenchon's supporters.

And Melenchon's group will keep pushing as a radical social movement after the election.  It's not going to fold the tents. 

Far-Left Ready to Back Hollande in Run-Off

http://www.france24.com/en/20120406-france-surging-far-left-front-ready-...

"The anti-capitalist Left Front Party will urge its supporters to unite behind Socialist candidate Francois Hollande to beat Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential run-off if its leader is eliminated in the vote's first round, a spokesperson said Friday.."

Stockholm wrote:

Check out this ad for Francois Hollande. How come no one does anything this emotive on this side of the ocean?

http://dai.ly/HsYTmy

Politicians would have to give better speeches thann they've been giving, for one. I liked this; it was very effective. I don't know if the approach would translate so well considering there was no Canadian revolution with values that are supposed to be reflected in government to this day.

<a href="http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/50712">GreenLeft Weekly</a> wrote:

Melenchon’s opening rallies quickly showed that the campaign was in touch with popular sentiment. After his initial appearance before 3.2 million viewers on the national TV program Of Words and Deeds, the town halls and sports centres were full to overflowing, beginning with a 6000-strong meeting in Nantes.

The Left Front candidate took advantage of the January downgrading of French public debt to protest outside Standard and Poors Paris office and to identify himself as “the candidate of resistance to the ratings agencies”.

He also condemned new binding European Union rules restricting national budgets to deficits no larger than 0.5% of Gross Domestic Product as “an organisation of Europe that leads to catastrophe”.

[b]The heart of Melenchon’s argument has been that an alternative policy to neoliberal austerity actually exists ― to make the rich and the bankers pay for their crisis. His meetings have combined an explanation of the feasibility of the Left Front program with caustic attacks on the “candidates of austerity”, and calls for resistance in the streets and workplaces.[/b]

The campaign has also been built up via tours of “constituencies”, such as high school and university educators, ecologists, public transport workers, farmers and artists and intellectuals.

One telling Melenchon intervention was to the national congress of France Nature Environment, at which the Left Front candidate spelled out an essentially ecosocialist vision.

An important target of the campaign has been “the forgotten people” in working-class suburbs where the FN has built support over the past 20 years, often at the expense of the PCF.

Melenchon told a 2500-strong meeting in Metz (where the FN won more than 20% of the vote in the 2010 regional poll): “Don’t yield to the party of the hatred that calls on you to divide yourself from others. Don’t allow yourself to be divided according to your religion or skin color.

“There is only one rule that should define us with regard to others ― liberte, egalite, fraternite!”

On March 18, the 141st anniversary of the Paris Commune, came confirmation the Left Front campaign was biting.

[b]Organisers were expecting 20,000 to 30,000 to show up for a march and rally to “seize the Bastille” in Paris. Up to 120,000 took part.[/b]

Further mass rallies, in Toulouse (50,000) and Marseille (100,000) have built on the success of Paris.

Of course, in Canada Mélenchon would be derided as a lunatic leftist by most babblers.

Quote:

Oratory is politically useless if one does not have an important message to deliver. Mélenchon has one: neoliberalism has failed, so it would be suicidal to persist with its inadequate policies. The French MEP also had a credible programme. In didactically crafted speeches or in media interviews, he radically departs from mainstream politicians by explaining that the economic crisis is systemic, that is to say that it is due to our flawed political choices and priorities. Our societies have never been as productive and wealthy as today, but the majority of the population are getting poorer despite working harder and harder. The problem is not a question of wealth production (as neoliberals and Blairite social democrats would have us believe), but of redistribution of wealth.

In France raging pundits and opponents call the Left Front programme an "economic nightmare" or a "delirious fantasy". Shouldn't they instead use this terminology to describe the banking debacle or austerity policies across Europe? Mélenchon's growing number of supporters view it as common sense and salutary: a 100% tax on earnings over £300,000; full pensions for all from the age of 60; reduction of work hours; a 20% increase in the minimum wage; and the European Central Bank should lend to European governments at 1%, as it does for the banks. Here are a few realistic measures to support impoverished populations. Is this a revolution? No, it is radical reformism; an attempt to stop the most unbearable forms of economic domination and deprivation in our societies. Fat cat bosses may leave France; they will be replaced by younger and more competent ones who will work for a fraction of their wages. "Humans First!" is more than a manifesto title, it is a democratic imperative: a sixth republic in place of the current republican monarchy; the nationalisation of energy companies (as energy sources are public goods) and, less often noticed, the ecological planning of the economy, the core of Mélenchon's political project.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon's policies are no far-left fantasy