The French election will, as frequently happens, come down to a runoff between the two leaders who are Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.
Zemmour, who was running as even more nationalist than Le Pen, has conceded gracefully and thrown his support to Le Pen.
Wonderful concession speech from Zemmour. He says despite a long list of differences with Le Pen, Macron is worse, having brought 2 million immigrants to France in 6 years. He calls on his supporters to vote for her. I will translate the whole thing in a bit.
— malmesburyman (@malmesburyman) April 10, 2022
As Arthur Goldhammer points out in the New Republic, while Le Pen is behind, so were the Brexit forces and Trump in 2016, and in both cases a miracle (which I presume Goldhammer would call a disaster) occurred.
Emmanuel Macron leads the presidential race—by about as much as “Remain” led in the UK and Hillary Clinton led in the United States in 2016. @artgoldhammer writes:https://t.co/2wqlIO0dwN
— The New Republic (@newrepublic) April 7, 2022
In addition to the Keep France French vote, Le Pen may actually get some votes from naturalized immigrants of Arab stock.
On Twitter, one guy noted that "the New York Times sent a reporter to a poor, mostly immigrant populated neighborhood in Dijon."
They got this quote:
A Moroccan woman named Hafida El-Bakkouri, wearing a head scarf, joined a group of women playing a version of dominoes. She said she buys a bag of flour for 50 cents in order to bake three baguettes for about the price of one at the bakery. “We get by,” she said.
When asked how she felt about Ms. Le Pen, who has vowed to ban the use of head scarves in public and fine women who wear them, Ms. El-Bakkouri said: “The main thing is she wants to send delinquents out of the country. I may vote for her. Why not?”
The first victims of immigrant crime and chaos tend to be established immigrants in immigrant neighborhoods.
One more thing—Le Pen is still being called "far-right" although she explicitly ran to the LEFT of Zemmour, which should make her the centrist candidate, and her potential election, by a majority of the French electorate, is considered a threat to democracy:
2022 French presidential election: Marine Le Pen qualifies for the run-off, partly due to the candidacy of Eric Zemmour who made her appear almost moderate despite her political program going against fundamental democratic principles | by @Gil_Paris https://t.co/8CHUsIxTjb
— Le Monde in English (@LeMonde_EN) April 10, 2022
Le Pen's anti-democratic slogan: If the people vote, the people win!
🇫🇷 Françaises, Français, n'écoutez pas ceux qui cherchent à vous démoraliser, à vous démobiliser, à débrancher le peuple.
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) April 8, 2022
Usez de votre droit de vote pour vous défendre. Les 10 et 24 avril, allez voter !
Si le peuple vote, le peuple gagne ! #DimancheJeVoteMarine pic.twitter.com/ZNxOPNFhIm
