Far right Le Pen and Centrist Macron through to second round of French election

[Abigail]

French reject main political parties.

[Bill the Cat]

Early polls say it will be a tight race, but Macron has a slight edge.

[Terraceth]

People always describe Le Pen as "far right." What's exactly far right about her? I've looked over her political positions and nothing there really strikes me as far right; she's absolutely right wing in a lot of areas but nothing I've see as far right outside of perhaps wanting France to leave the EU, but the "far left" candidate was in favor of that also.

Early polls say it will be a tight race, but Macron has a slight edge.

Huh? All the polls I've seen indicate that in a Macron vs. Le Pen runoff, Macron is easily the favorite to win.

Now obviously, polls can be off, a lot can happen even in two weeks, and the polls about Le Pen vs. Macron were all hypothetical anyway (i.e. they asked voters before the main election "if those were the final two, who would you vote for" and when a hypothetical becomes reality, people can very much change their mind). But your claim that polls show it to be a tight race goes against all the polling data I've seen. Where is your data from?

[Starlight]

A pen vs a macaroon? Easy choice.



Vote Macaroon for the tastier choice!

[Bill the Cat]

People always describe Le Pen as "far right." What's exactly far right about her? I've looked over her political positions and nothing there really strikes me as far right; she's absolutely right wing in a lot of areas but nothing I've see as far right outside of perhaps wanting France to leave the EU, but the "far left" candidate was in favor of that also.

Huh? All the polls I've seen indicate that in a Macron vs. Le Pen runoff, Macron is easily the favorite to win.

Now obviously, polls can be off, a lot can happen even in two weeks, and the polls about Le Pen vs. Macron were all hypothetical anyway (i.e. they asked voters before the main election "if those were the final two, who would you vote for" and when a hypothetical becomes reality, people can very much change their mind). But your claim that polls show it to be a tight race goes against all the polling data I've seen. Where is your data from?

Heard it talked about on CNN today.

[guacamole]

Yeah. Polls. Funny things, eh?

[rogue06]

People always describe Le Pen as "far right." What's exactly far right about her? I've looked over her political positions and nothing there really strikes me as far right; she's absolutely right wing in a lot of areas but nothing I've see as far right outside of perhaps wanting France to leave the EU, but the "far left" candidate was in favor of that also.

Huh? All the polls I've seen indicate that in a Macron vs. Le Pen runoff, Macron is easily the favorite to win.

Now obviously, polls can be off, a lot can happen even in two weeks, and the polls about Le Pen vs. Macron were all hypothetical anyway (i.e. they asked voters before the main election "if those were the final two, who would you vote for" and when a hypothetical becomes reality, people can very much change their mind). But your claim that polls show it to be a tight race goes against all the polling data I've seen. Where is your data from?

The two or three polls I've seen have Macron up by a 2 to 1 margin.

[KingsGambit]

Bear in mind that Europe's political map is significantly to the map of that of the US. Mainstream conservatives in the US would be considered far right by European standards. In the case of Le Pen, though, I believe it's pretty much exclusively her immigration rhetoric that is earning her the "far right" label by media observers.

[Starlight]

Bear in mind that Europe's political map is significantly to the left of the map of that of the US.

Fixed it for you.

Mainstream conservatives in the US would be considered far right by European standards.

Agreed.

Here are the US presidential candidates (as plotted by the people at PoliticalCompass.com)

and here are the UK political parties:

and the UK is generally considered quite right-wing for Europe, go to Ireland and the map looks like:

or Germany:

Here in New Zealand, the spread is similar to much of Europe:

In the case of Le Pen, though, I believe it's pretty much exclusively her immigration rhetoric that is earning her the "far right" label by media observers.

Yeah, and interestingly enough political compass thinks Macron is actually really far-right on economic issues:

[KingsGambit]

Not to derail but I really am not a fan of the Political Compass website. It seems clearly biased in favor of a certain anti-globalization agenda and political differences between the US and elsewhere aside, any metric that has Barack Obama as practically indistinguishable from George W. Bush strikes me as useless. While both had various foreign policy similarities, they were ideologically very different and the quiz glosses over this entirely. A couple other issues I have with it are its (intentional?) conflation of what should be vs. what should be legally enforced, as well as its silly astrology question. Their stated rationale for the astrology question is to gauge a belief in determinism, but asking about a belief in Calvinism would achieve the same thing with likely opposite political results.

[Darth Executor]

People always describe Le Pen as "far right." What's exactly far right about her?

She wants a pause in immigration so immigrants can assimilate. This used to be a centrist position but it's now labeled "far right" by corporate media to scare people away from it.

[seer]

She wants a pause in immigration so immigrants can assimilate. This used to be a centrist position but it's now labeled "far right" by corporate media to scare people away from it.

This is exactly why western Europe is lost.

[Mountain Man]

Not to derail but I really am not a fan of the Political Compass website. It seems clearly biased in favor of a certain anti-globalization agenda and political differences between the US and elsewhere aside, any metric that has Barack Obama as practically indistinguishable from George W. Bush strikes me as useless.

He likes it because it tells him what he wants to hear. It's the same reason Nate Silver is still considered a credible statistician despite failing at every single prediction since the 2012 election.

[Terraceth]

Bear in mind that Europe's political map is significantly to the map of that of the US. Mainstream conservatives in the US would be considered far right by European standards.

I understand that. But there are two problems here. First, the places referring to her as "far right" are US sources.

Second, even considering that, she doesn't seem "far right." She's pro-choice, against the death penalty, and appears against privatization. Now I know that Europe being more to the left means some of those positions aren't exactly seen as liberal, but they're sure not on the far right. And even her positions that would be seen as potentially strongly right-wing don't seem all that extreme in the context of the French political parties. The strongest I can see are opposition to the EU and immigration, but her immigration policy doesn't really seem that much stronger than the other candidates, and dislike of the EU doesn't really seem to be a left-right thing when you consider Melenchon (who I've seen described as "making Bernie Sanders look like a right-winger") was also in favor of leaving the EU.

What I find especially bizarre is I see that term applied far more frequently and consistently to Le Pen and her party than to the German political party Alternative For Germany, which is definitely more right-wing than Le Pen. It'd be like continually referring to the Democratic Party as the far left but doing so less frequently for the Green Party.

He likes it because it tells him what he wants to hear. It's the same reason Nate Silver is still considered a credible statistician despite failing at every single prediction since the 2012 election.

Such as? He was one of the few guys who was pointing out that Trump actually did have a real shot at winning the presidency (giving him odds of about 30%) and was criticizing other sources that were pretty much counting him out entirely.

[Abigail]

I understand that. But there are two problems here. First, the places referring to her as "far right" are US sources..

She is also referred to as 'far right' here in UK. I would guess it is because she wants to stop immigration. Leftists here are always harping on the fact that her father Jean-Marie Le Penn made dismissive comments about the holocaust. Besides the fact she has long ago distanced herself from him and iirc correctly expelled him, nowadays here in UK it is the Leftists who are anti-semetic.