(Marine) Le Pen (French National Front) trumpets protectionism (in presidential race)

[pampango]

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen played to deepening economic fears on Thursday, promising to leave the euro, pursue protectionist policies and accusing incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy of selling out to foreign ratings agencies. Less than four months before the presidential election, Le Pen told reporters she was “the candidate of the nation”, pitted against establishment rivals who were wedded to globalisation.

“They are insincere and conning the French,” Le Pen said of her opponents, speaking at the National Front headquarters just outside Paris. “I am, and I will be, the only candidate for protectionism and restoring our industrial base. ... France can no longer be blinded by a Europe dominated by Brussels bureaucrats stuck in their “ultra-liberal” free trade ways ..."

Despite strong public support, Le Pen still needs to win the backing of 500 elected officials, such as mayors, before the end of February in order to run. Her father barely squeezed through in 2007, and Le Pen said she was some way from securing enough signatures.

Under current rules officials must declare who they sponsor. Le Pen says the rules hinder democracy, as many would rather choose anonymously and as a result are boycotting the process.

http://www.iol.co.za/business/international/le-pen-trumpets-protectionism-1.1208658

That is the first I have heard of the French electoral requirement that presidential candidates get written backing of 500 public officials in order to be eligible to run.

[JustAnotherGen]

1. It's been that way in France for a long time

Re - the public officials. Remember - their education system is very different from ours. Public Service is something you identify you want to be involved in during secondary school (think high school in the US). . . it's a "Profession" if you will.

Regardless - she won't get the backing. And she simply doesn't have the support she would like to think she has. As they vote in rounds - if she were to get down to the final two? Even my friends Mona and Shana (who just hate Sarkozy with a passion) would vote for Sarkozy over Le Pen.

[MADem]

2. She comes from a political family--her daddy as batshit as herself.

Sarkozy is no weeping liberal, himself, but he looks like Kumbayah Charlie in the middle of a drum circle compared to Le Pen.

This is an instructional piece, for those who think that the "European" systems are somehow better or more accessible than our own, and that the Europeans are uniformly a bunch of happy leftists who are accepting of all and socially progressive. It's just not true.

[tishaLA]

3. He's a more avowedly racist and homophobic version of Ron Paul nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. The latest poll for the French presidential election

The first round has many candidates (if they can get those 500 endorsements - assuming this blog has the numbers right, I think Le Pen will manage it, since 500 out of 45,000 is not that difficult, for someone on 19% popular support - normally 4 or 5 left wing candidates manage it, and I think Marin Le Pen's father always managed it, and she's said to be a bit more 'personable' than him:

A candidate in the first round must obviously be a French national and must have obtained the signature of 500 elected people from at least 30 different departments in France or abroad. There are potentially 45 000 elected people, including 36 000 Mayors. No one can present more than one person in the election.

http://johninparis.blogspot.com/2011/12/french-presidentials-race-for-500.html

36,000 mayors is a lot - France has a mayor for each village, and the Nationalist message plays better in rural areas. After that round, the top 2 face off in the final round:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy narrowed challenger Francois Hollande’s lead in opinion polls, according to an Ifop survey in Le Journal du Dimanche today.

The Socialist Hollande leads the incumbent in a head-to- head contest by 54 percent to 46 percent, a 4 point swing in Sarkozy’s favor from last month, the poll showed. Sarkozy gained 2 points and Hollande lost 2 points.

In the multi-candidate knockout voting round, Hollande would take 28 percent, up by 1/2 a point, and Sarkozy would win 26 percent, up 2 points. National Front candidate Marine Le Pen would get 19 percent, down one point.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-08/sarkozy-narrows-socialist-hollande-s-poll-lead-ifop-survey-says.html

So it's still possible that Le Pen could end up in the runoff against Hollande, if things go bad for Sarkozy (eg the economy). A face-to-face between Hollande and Le Pen should be comfortably won by Hollande, though - a poll said up to 30% would consider voting for her, which indicates there's still a large part of the centre-right that finds her too extreme.