Macron courts Marseille voters; climate activists in Paris

Macron is attempting to copy Trudeau - squeak through despite spending years making new enemies.

Promoting green policies can backfire in general elections. People don't want the government to target their car use, their holidays and find new ways to penalise them if they refuse to be manipulated into behavioural changes that they are not happy about. And young activists will have already seen enough of Macron to put them off ever voting for him.

Politicians need to know when to call it a day for the good of the party, handing an opportunity to someone who isn't asking for the votes of people they have spent years verbally abusing, legislating against, selling out and antagonising.

He may do it. If he fails, it will impact on the EU. There is no longer a big three there but a big two, and Germany is getting hammered by Russian energy dependency. Le Pen's France would be good for Italy, Hungary, Poland (and the UK, possibly Russia too). Not so good for Germany or Northern European members. And a nightmare for Brussels.

A tough call for the French. However repugnant they find Le Pen, voting for Macron may be too awful to contemplate. I wonder how many won't vote. Non-voters effectively upended the status quo at the Brexit vote. This could be a repeat of that.

Now only the left can save Macron from defeat at the hands of French fascists, but they'll still get no thanks: just ask Bernie...

The Mélenchon Consultation results are in, and the young people of France have decided.

The majority of members of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party will abstain or leave their ballot papers blank in the presidential run-off between President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen on April 24. More than 66% said they would abstain, leave their ballot paper blank or spoil it, and just over 33% said they would vote for Macron (an option for voting for Le Pen was not given in the Consultation).

The IPSOS-Sopra-Steria poll released Saturday showed that some 33% of Mélenchon voters would back Macron, with 16% supporting Le Pen, but the results were deemed inconclusive statistically, since more than 50% of people questioned declined to give their view.

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220417-leftist-party-consultation-shows-majority-will-abstain-vote-blank-in-macron-le-pen-run-off .

So the landscape is clear. Young people will not willingly budge off of the ideals of Mélenchon, and he won't endorse Marcon. In the words of one supporter [Politico], it is "like choosing between the plague and cholera."

If either candidate cannot quickly attract cross-overs, the middle or undecided, then it will be a quick race to the bottom, for both candidates competing to describe - in detail - the certain doom that France, Europe, and civilization faces in the hands of the other; and it will be an ugly week in France.

Le Pen wants to ban headscarves in France, a country that has Europe's largest Muslim population. Both Le Pen and Macron were confronted by women in headscarves who asked why their clothing choices should be caught up in politics.

Muslim extremism poses a greater danger to France than the climate does.