The Ruling Class Had It's Chance: Here Comes Ultra Nationalism

Politico: France — 2022 presidential election voting intention

Wiki: Opinion polling for the 2022 French presidential election

There is a fringe RW candidate, an author who hasn't even declared his candidacy. He is polling enough to land around 2nd or 4th in polls. France uses a runoff system that guarantees a fringe candidate will never win...so long as there is always a mainstream candidate in the run-off. The left it completely fractured. Macron is unpopular. Three RW candidates from centrist to "extremist" have enough votes between them such that if voters went completely strategic and picked two, it's possible they would knock out Macron.

Socialist Worker: Eric Zemmour—meet the new far right threat in France’s presidential election

Macron is widely and rightly unpopular for a series of attacks on workers, his repression against the Yellow Vest movement and his aloof contempt for ordinary people. Zemmour could win.

He puts forward a vile mixture of Islamophobia, racism toward migrants, sexism and homophobia. In many ways, his views are more openly racist than Le Pen’s.

Zemmour has several convictions for racist hate speech and puts forward the “great replacement” theory peddled by fascists. It claims that white Europeans are being replaced by immigrants.

He has described Muslims as “colonisers”, proposed a ban on first names such as Mohammed and called for two million migrants to be returned to their countries of origin.

Speaking to journalists on Monday he said, “I think many French people were waiting for this message. That the country is in danger of dying, subverted by an unprecedented wave of migration, that whole areas of the country have become enclaves of foreign Islamists.”

Back in 2014 I wrote Immigration Issue Set to Explode in America; Prepare for Political Volatility and finished by saying an ambitious politician in the U.S. had a wide open shot if they proposed immigration restriction. The link on the text went to an interview of Donald Trump.

I know far too little of French politics to make a forecast, but I believe this is true in general: "I think many French people were waiting for this message." Debate is stifled by media and BigTech companies in the U.S. more so than France, but France punishes people for "hate" speech. France seems to have a more open political debate, but the system is similarly geared towards the status quo. It would take two nationalist candidates coming in first and second in the first vote, and then making it into the run-off round for one of them to win.

Variables that would help outsider candidates include: new pandemic waves, vaccine failure, recession, inflation, random negative events such as foreign policy disasters or terrorism. A few of those are already rising in probability.

My sense is the ruling class is rolling all the dice on seizing power. The BigTech censorship, vaccine passports, IRS tracking bank accounts in the U.S., population lockdowns, hunting down protesters on social media, climate crisis to replace the pandemic as justification for all the same policies, the "you will own nothing and be happy plan" can work if they seize power and start rolling back dissent. If their boneheaded green policies, money printing, support for anti-Christian and anti-tradition culture (in some cases outright Satanic policies and messages) and general incompetence backfires, it could result in the roulette wheel tossing up a "double zero" who proposes serious reforms with broad popular support. France will be an important test on the issues of immigration and culture, but not particularly relevant for the U.S. unless there is a shock result that breaks the seal on currently "forbidden" policies such as immigration restrictions.