French election: Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen estimated to be through to second round

How amazing that that could happen?  

France's dark Nazi history colors presidential campaign

PARIS (AP) April 28, 2017 — France's troubled wartime past is taking center stage Friday in the country's highly charged presidential race, as centrist Emmanuel Macron visited the site of France's worst Nazi massacre and Marine Le Pen's far-right party suffered a new blow over alleged Holocaust denial.

Seeking the moral high ground, Macron wants to send a message to voters that Le Pen isn't a candidate like any other, but the heir of a party stained by anti-Semitism, racism and an outdated worldview.

Le Pen's years-long efforts to detoxify her party's image — efforts that have brought her one step away from the presidency — endured a new setback Friday, when the leader of her National Front party quit because of an uproar over past remarks allegedly questioning the Nazi gas chambers.

French emotions around France's history of collaborating with the Nazis remain raw, seven decades after the war's end. The country has never undergone a national atonement; instead many people still view the actions of the collaborationist Vichy regime as a historical anomaly instead of atrocities committed by the French state.

Macron sought to bring the horrors of the Holocaust home to voters with his visit Friday to Oradour-sur-Glane, a ghost town left behind after the largest massacre in Nazi-occupied France. The town is today a phantom village, with burned-out cars and abandoned buildings left as testimony to its history.

On June 10, 1944, four days after the Allied D-Day landings in Normandy, an SS armored division herded villagers into barns and a church, blocked the doors, and set Oradour-sur-Glane ablaze. A total of 642 men, women and children died.

Only six people survived. In comments to local newspapers published on Friday, Macron said "we don't want to forget that from here, from Oradour, comes our Republican pride, the National Council of the Resistance that has built our (fundamental) balances, our strength and the European project. That is, everything Marine Le Pen wants to destroy."

Le Pen prompted an outcry earlier this month by denying that the French state was responsible for the roundup of Jews in World War II, in a reference to the Vel d'Hiv, the Paris stadium where thousands of Jews were transferred before being sent to Nazi death camps.

Meanwhile, interim National Front leader Jean-Francois Jalkh resigned Friday over comments reported in a 2000 interview in which he allegedly cast doubt on the truth of Nazi gas chambers. National Front vice president Louis Aliot said on BFM television Friday that Jalkh is stepping down to avoid further damage to the party, but that he is contesting allegations of Holocaust denial, a crime in France.

Jalkh is also among seven people called to trial in an alleged illegal financing scheme for the party — one of the other challenges facing Le Pen's campaign. Aliot said Jalkh will be replaced as party leader by Steeve Briois, mayor of Le Pen's electoral fiefdom of Henin-Beaumont in depressed northern France.

Soccer great Zinedine Zidane, meanwhile, joined the list of prominent figures urging voters to keep Le Pen out of the presidency. Le Pen is not letting setbacks deter her. She is painting herself as David against rival Emmanuel Macron's Goliath as she tries to overcome a poll gap and broaden her support base.

The two candidates offer starkly different visions of France's future — Macron's embrace of a globalized, diverse nation within an open-bordered Europe vs. Le Pen's protectionist, tightly policed France independent of the EU.

Le Pen reached out Friday from her far-right base across to the far left, urging voters who chose communist-linked Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first-round vote to support her in the runoff. Le Pen and Melenchon won a combined 40 percent of the vote in the first round after populist campaigns that tapped into widespread frustration with mainstream politics.

While they hold opposing views on immigration and social issues, Melenchon and Le Pen are both skeptical of the European Union, hostile to free-trade deals and promised to help workers hurt by globalization.

https://www.rt.com/news/line/

Merkel says Macron would be ‘strong president’ for France
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that Emmanuel Macron would make a “strong president” for France, throwing her weight behind the centrist favorite to win a run-off on May 7 against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Asked in an interview if Germany would accept future French demands that it increase its contributions to the European Union, Merkel said: “We will see. I can’t anticipate the discussions with the future French president.” (Reuters)

'Strong president' for Rothschild, Goldman Sachs, and troughing eurocrats more like. He's just a puppet, an empty suit with nothing to offer ordinary people - as opposed to urban chatterers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/28/emmanuel-macron-wants-renegotiate-calais-border-treaty/

Emmanuel Macron, the French presidential favourite, says he will renegotiate France’s border agreement with the UK, raising the prospect of a “Jungle” refugee camp being set up in Kent.

Mr Macron, who will go head to head against Marine Le Pen in the final round of the election next month, said the Le Touquet treaty, under which British border guards operate in Calais, should be “back on the table”.

David Cameron warned last year that if the British border at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in Calais was removed after Brexit, refugees would relocate to Britain.....etc.

Macron may not have noticed, but we are an island. This entire mess is France's fault for letting these people in in the first place.

May Day riots in Paris:

https://www.rt.com/news/386725-clashes-erupt-between-police-demonstrators-paris/

Clashes have erupted in central Paris between police and demonstrators during May Day protests in the French capital. Protesters pelted Molotov cocktails as police responded with tear gas. Several of the officers caught fire and could be seen engulfed in flames.
The violence was reportedly caused by a group of radical protesters, most of who covered their faces with black masks. The group was separate from peaceful demonstrators...etc.

  What on earth?

Antifa-anarchists, Lily. They hate Le Pen because she's a 'fascist' and they hate Macron because he's just a globalist Rothschild puppet.

I saw one interesting news report; a lot of the sane French Left simply aren't going to vote, and the remainder may well vote for Le Pen, because her economic policies are actually more in tune with them.

We must admit that it is anything but boring..... 

+6
The French pair, who have been married for ten years, met when he was a schoolboy of 15. She was then 39 - the same age he is now - and married with three children


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4468062/I-know-French-Macron-s-love-story-weird.html#ixzz4g00rJakv
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

I am afraid Mrs Macron doesn't look good to me - she looks desperate, starved and artificially thin and in danger of her stick-like legs snapping if she takes a tumble. Look at her face and neck - I'll lay odds she's not a pretty sight under all the make-up.

At least Marine le Pen looks like a real woman - I find Mrs Macron as artificial as her husband. Oh, and male teachers are jailed for doing what she did.

It is just plain weird. 

http://news.sky.com/story/live-frances-next-president-to-be-revealed-10867884

What the exit polls are saying

Emmanuel Macron has been given a wide lead over his far-right rival Marine Le Pen in all of the exit polls released.

There are some slight fluctuations.

Ipsos is projecting that Mr Macron, a centrist independent who started his En Marche! movement not too long ago, has won 65.1%, with far-right Ms Le Pen on 34.9%.

Meanwhile, Harris Interactive gives Mr Macron 66.1% and Ms Le Pen 33.9%.

Unsurprisingly, the plastic people won. So, Antifa's excuse for rioting will be 'globalism'.

I must confess to chuckling at all those hypocritical Macron supporters belting out the Marseillaise. They've just elected a globalist bankers' puppet and his granny wife - they'd have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they'd kept the Bourbons.

Well I'm pleased.

Well, you live there, so you know more about the ins and outs than any outsider, Sabot.

I just don't like Macron, or his skeletal, Botox-ed, veneer-toothed granny wife. It's just a personal thing.

bb1 wrote:Well, you live there, so you know more about the ins and outs than any outsider, Sabot.

I just don't like Macron, or his skeletal, Botox-ed, veneer-toothed granny wife. It's just a personal thing.

I hope I do, Bonny. And 66% is a fair old lead.

Not sure about his Cabinet, as he doesn't appear to have a Party, but that will be interesting when it happens. As it is, they can choose whoever they like.

As for his wife, I wish I had looked as good as her when I was 40, let alone 65. But I bet you won't find these two doing dodgy things with other people's money.

See, I don't think she looks good at all, Sabot. To me, she looks half-starved, her teeth are very obvious fakes, and I shudder to think what she looks likes without makeup - beyond, like any other emaciated woman of her age. I just find the pair of them totally artificial, bought and paid for by Rothschilds.

As ever, time will tell - I will be happy to be proven wrong about them.

bb1 wrote:See, I don't think she looks good at all, Sabot. To me, she looks half-starved, her teeth are very obvious fakes, and I shudder to think what she looks likes without makeup - beyond, like any other emaciated woman of her age. I just find the pair of them totally artificial, bought and paid for by Rothschilds.

As ever, time will tell - I will be happy to be proven wrong about them.

She will always look older than him, but he has taken her all the way to a Presidential Win. And he won't be dumping her anytime soon.

And having a Banker as President of France could be quite useful.

I am genuinely not getting this, Sabot. How on earth can having a president put into power by the Rothschilds and other globalists be good for ordinary French people? I've seen some of his ideas concerning the economy, and they're pretty horrifying, given that French people expect to retire at 60-ish, and don't want to be forced to work every hour their employer demands.

And how are French civil servants going to feel about being given the boot when he tries to slash State spending? I genuinely find this baffling.....

bb1 wrote:I am genuinely not getting this, Sabot. How on earth can having a president put into power by the Rothschilds and other globalists be good for ordinary French people? I've seen some of his ideas concerning the economy, and they're pretty horrifying, given that French people expect to retire at 60-ish, and don't want to be forced to work every hour their employer demands.

And how are French civil servants going to feel about being given the boot when he tries to slash State spending? I genuinely find this baffling.....

How did Rothschilds accomplish this? The People Voted. And The French Peasants generally do as they please anyway.

Perhaps they are taking a chance because they've had enough of supposedly popular parties. Holland was a complete disaster and got nowhere. And Sarkozy, much as I liked him, didn't do much better.

Even French Presidents don't get to do whatever they want.

To me, the last twenty years of French Politics have been a total hoot. You can have no idea of the number of times I have been told that I am going to be kicked out, even during the years when I had no visible means of support, because I was working on the black, and without any Pension.

And I'm not going to be kicked out now.

French Civil Servants? Tis time UK sacked a few of it's own. No one much cares about them at all. There are always The Food Banks for them, which are much better organised around here.

Although I have never had anything but kindness from any French Civil Servant with whom I have come into contact. And I mean real kindness.

There is such a different attitude of mind in France, and impossible to explain. But everybody actually likes each other. And no one has ever been rude to me.

I have still not quite gotten used to this, so it is still a glory to me.

But Sabot, how do you think all those French civil servants, who are used to a decent standard of living for themselves and their families, are going to react when they get told to use food banks? People have a very bad habit of not taking it well when they and their families are sacrificed to political sloganeering....

Next month's elections should be interesting; I suspect all Ms Le Pen needs to do is pour a drink, grab some popcorn, and wait and watch. She always was aiming for 2022, anyway.

bb1 wrote:But Sabot, how do you think all those French civil servants, who are used to a decent standard of living for themselves and their families, are going to react when they get told to use food banks? People have a very bad habit of not taking it well when they and their families are sacrificed to political sloganeering....

Next month's elections should be interesting; I suspect all Ms Le Pen needs to do is pour a drink, grab some popcorn, and wait and watch. She always was aiming for 2022, anyway.

Do you think that UK has too many Civil Servants, and if so, what would you do with them?

As it is, a redundant Civil Servant in France wouldn't qualify for Food Banks, for various reasons. I was just being factitious.

Why would I want to sack civil servants, for no good reason apart from political sloganeering? The country couldn't function without them....

bb1 wrote:Why would I want to sack civil servants, for no good reason apart from political sloganeering? The country couldn't function without them....

There are still far too many of them everywhere. And all on Pensions that most of us might die for.

They're still people, Sabot, with bills to pay and families to worry about - and this is exactly why, IMO, Macron's fine words are going to prove to be empty when reality and real people become involved.