Globalism vs. Sovereignty in France
Globalism vs. Sovereignty in France
The French non-Mainstream's Fight Against the Neoliberal Cabal
“I have decided that the hardships of a struggle for freedom are for a brave man preferable to not struggling at all. And yet all the others who have been elected to protect your rights have been led by prestige or hope of rewards to turn their whole power and authority against you. They think it is better to be paid for dereliction of duty than to do the right thing without payment. And so all have now yielded to the tyranny of the few, men who have taken control of the treasury, the army, the kingdoms, and provinces in the name of military necessity.”
- Tribune C. Licinius Macer [Sallust, Histories, III.48]
I feel compelled to provide another pre-election [by a few hours, at this point] update about the French elections as I said I would when I covered the elections before the primary. In my last article on this topic I provided a history of Marine Le Pen and my views on the importance of France to the world. Unfortunately, the polls were not off in her favor the way they would have needed to be in the primary and and thus I was demotivated, because it is hard to imagine how she gets the votes to win. However there are still some interesting things to discuss about this, such as exactly where the votes went, aggregate support for NATO, and most importantly, how openly the cabal of Western globalists are willing to “interfere” in national elections [at least, by the extremely loose “Russiagate” definition of interference.]
First, the results:
For the most part, the polls were remarkably accurate, with the biggest surprise being Melenchon’s strong showing, around 5% above polling. The other big surprise is just how complete is the collapse of the the “traditional” center-right and center-left parties- it was something that had to be seen to be believed. Pecresse of the Republicans got just 4.78% of the vote, where as the Socialist Party’s Hidalgo received a truly laughable 1.75%. The Socialist Party last held the presidency at the beginning of 2017 so this is an incredible collapse, even if those parties had taken turns opposing more extreme parties in the general elections as part of the so-called “Republican Front” [the agreement by which everyone coalesces around moderates in the general election.] I had hoped that both Le Pen and Zemmour could outperform, but that was not the case. At a combined total of 35% in the primary she would have a strong chance of breaking 50% in the general; at 30% that is much less true.
The fact is, on the most basic level of analysis there is no reason to believe Le Pen can outperform the general election polls if she didn’t in the primary. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight gives a decent rundown in this video. He gives her 10-15% odds of winning. Say what you will about Nate Silver, but in America at least he’s one of the only data scientists who seems to be able to accurately cover political polling in a reality-based manner, and we’d be lost without him- he was also the only major mainstream pollster in 2016 to give Trump high enough odds of winning to not look like a complete jackass when it happened. So one can dream, but the fact is Le Pen is at long odds, and there is no obvious reason she can make up the gap.
Here is a projection of where votes will go:
Melenchon is far and away the most interesting here, with such a split. This is largely because he would not endorse Macron but spoke more explicitly against Le Pen. Melenchon’s youngest supporters by and large dislike both remaining candidates. This makes his voters the only major wildcard in the race- it’s been said they could be “kingmakers” but that really doesn’t apply when you split your votes three ways. I’m also fascinated by the relatively large cohort of people who abstained in the first round and will vote in the second. I am skeptical that polling accurately captures these people, their views, or the rate at which they will vote; alternately, there may be devoted centrists who do this every election as part of the “Republican Front”, though I would expect people like that to be obsessed with the importance of voting in every election. There is an outside chance that Le Pen will be seen as the leader of the overall French right and outperform with Pecresse voters, but I’m pretty sure the remaining Republican voters are the French equivalent of our Never-Trump Republican dead-enders and they are a bunch of Mitt Romneys who will go down with the ship while voting for the neoliberal.
If all of these things come together, you can see how Le Pen has a 10-15% chance, but it relies on an unrealistic amount of abstention and votes from Melenchon supporters. It seems, for now, the best hope is further damage to the French center, and it is indeed happening:
I love how society has become so splintered that what they call “mainstream” is at 42% support. I am reminded of a comedian who said he had heard a city would be “majority-minority” in the future, and he could just imagine an American going to Africa and saying “Wow, look at all these minorities here.” This creates some serious governing problems, and they are only holding on to power due to some wedge issues splitting the smaller factions.
The most interesting part of this relates to support for NATO and involvement in Ukraine. Though they want us to believe NATO-skepticism is some sort of weakness, the fact is that NATO-skeptics who oppose escalation with Russia, won an outright majority at the polls. Le Pen, Melenchon, and Zemmour got a combined 52%, and one can assume at least a few more of the minor parties are anti-NATO. It may be that the voters do not consider that a priority, or are voting for the candidates in spite of this position, but it is absolute proof that the majority of French voters are willing to vote for someone who wants to exit NATO and avoid war with Russia. Melenchon, the only one to outperform, went as far as to say this:
“Our condemnation of Russia’s military intervention does not mean we have shifted our stance, on the contrary…I have always said that we cannot continue to humiliate Russia by pushing NATO ever closer to its borders. It’s a danger they’ll never accept.”
Of course this was basically Obama’s policy in 2016, but now it is something only a crazy Putin apologist would say [it’s fun how fast these things change, isn’t it.] It seems that NATO should be less scared of Le Pen and more concerned about the fact that they lack majority support from the French population. That said, they of course have no problem suppressing democracy for their own purposes, so NATO can probably avoid this becoming a problem for some time.
I, for one, love Le Pen’s vision for France’s role in the world:
She says, “In your mind France has become a continental country. No, we’re a global power, and we need to renew our ambition of global influence.” Of course, to some people that sounds crazy and evil, but it is simply that they have been indoctrinated into US-led globalism. The fact is that multipolarism makes us all safer because it creates a balance of power. France has an enormous economy, a major military, and nuclear weapons. It is genuinely one of the world’s most important and powerful countries, even if its status has been continually reduced. France maintains strong relationships with its former colonies in Africa and Asia, and is in a unique position to counter Russian and Chinese interests in those places, while maintaining a less antagonistic relationship with Russia and China than the United States and United Kingdom. None of Le Pen’s views here are crazy, and it is in fact a view of leading the country to a bright future, instead of managing its decline.
There is a further thing to note about the growth of non-mainstream parties:
This retirement debate has been a large factor in the campaign, and it is genuinely a difficult political issue. The biggest difference is Le Pen wants people to be allowed an earlier retirement age if they begin work earlier, whereas Macron wants a later retirement age for everyone. France has long term budgetary problems that need to be solved, but telling people late in their career that they need to work a few more years is sure to be drastically unpopular with those people.
More than anything, Macron simply is an establishmentarian and a proud globalist. He is a neo-liberal’s neo-liberal. Meanwhile, all of the French “extreme” parties prefer a smaller, more local, and more human vision- one that cares about more than international financial interests. If they can find a way to agree, a broad anti-war, anti-globalism, anti-corporatist coalition could transform France, and this is what they fear the most.
Take, for example, this recent attack Le Pen made on Macron for government payments to the US-based consulting firm The McKinsey Group, which is associated with US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttegieg:
It doesn’t get more neo-liberal than outsourcing vital government functions to outside consulting firms- that was pretty much the recipe for controlling Latin America in the ‘80s. It’s easy to see how this is exactly the sort of thing all the minority parties could team up and oppose.
And so, the Western cabal seeing the threat to its global order, all of the West’s power players are saying more about a national election than they should be. The Chancellor of Germany and the Prime Ministers of Spain and Portugal wrote a joint op-ed in the major French newspaper Le Monde which was intended to scare the public away from a Le Pen vote and her “Europe of Nations” [imagine saying that like it’s a bad thing.] Apparently Le Pen is attacking democracy in her bid to get democratically elected. This is yet another instance where ‘democracy’ means whatever government supports the Western cabal and ‘freedom’ is also whatever gives them power.
Naturally, Ukrainian President Zelensky is a big Macron supporter, since all he cares about is people irresponsibly flooding arms into Ukraine. The entire US political class of course backs Macron. Somehow it is also a vital US interest that our European allies cede their sovereignty to the bureaucrats in Brussels. Voice of America, literal US government propaganda, wants to make sure you know Le Pen is close to Putin. These are the same people who wanted to say RT simply broadcasting in the US at all constituted election interference. And of course the covid-Ukraine sycophants with vaccines and Ukraine flags and sunflowers in their handles are big Le Pen-fearers- I will spare you examples today, but suffice to say they think its clever to share a picture of Le Pen shaking Putin’s hand, despite that a near identical picture of Macron exists. On top of that the stock markets greatly favor Macron, which I usually take to be a bad thing about a person because stocks have little to do with the common man’s well being and are a sign that the politician is seen to favor the global oligarchy.
I could spend more time giving examples, but we all lived through Donald Trump’s election and his presidency, and she is being treated the same. The play book has been endlessly discussed and has grown boring, but it remains potent on those who hold the “beliefs” I’ve described as “institutionalism” [which more than “beliefs” are just being a brainwashed, unhappy cowards.] They want you to believe that the election results they eke out with all of their institutional power are “real democracy”, but that it is the end of democracy if the candidate they don’t like wins. Marine Le Pen does have some concerningly statist policies that could fairly be said to be bad for minority groups, but the one thing she has never been against is distributing political power through fair elections, and at its core that’s the only thing representative democracy is.
Anything could happen tomorrow, but the globalists know they’re losing their sway with the public, which is great but is also why they are so dangerous and aggressive right now. Regardless, Marine can be proud of giving them a good scare. Marine, If you can’t win tomorrow, a truly hope to see you again in 5 years, because the public is turning your way.
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