French election 2017: Who are the candidates?
OP: I thought I'd make a post about this since no one else has yet and it is a pretty important election -in particular, the far-right 'Front National' (i.e. 'National Front') party has a chance at winning. (Also my family has been following this so...)
An important note about elections in France: there is the possibility of more than one round of voting.
From Al-Jazeera: "The first round of the French presidential election will be held on April 23. If none of the 11 candidates wins more than 50 percent, the vote goes to a second round. That run-off election will be held on May 7. The results will be announced at 8pm local time.
At the last election in 2012, won by outgoing President Francois Hollande , voter turnout was more than 80 percent, down slightly from the 2007 vote. Polls suggest turnout this year will be lower than usual. Once elected, the French president can serve a maximum of two five-year terms in office."
---------------------
French election 2017: Who are the candidates?
The five main candidates are (L-R) François Fillon, Benoît Hamon, Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon
--------------------------
Eleven candidates have joined the race for the French presidency, and the campaign is now in its final days ahead of the election on 23 April.
There are four front-runners and, as none is likely to secure an outright majority, a run-off between the two leading candidates is now expected on 7 May.
For the first time in 15 years, the far-right National Front has a realistic chance of winning the race under Marine Le Pen. Centrist Emmanuel Macron is challenging her in the opinion polls.
The former favourite, centre-right Republican François Fillon, is still in the race despite being investigated over alleged misuse of public funds. So is far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is enjoying a late surge in support.
For the first time in modern French history, the incumbent - Socialist President François Hollande - is not running for a second term because of poor ratings.
All you need to know about the French election
Marine Le Pen, National Front (FN)
She took over the FN leadership from her father in January 2011 and came third in presidential elections the following year. She brought the party big electoral gains in regional elections in late 2015.
Opinion polls suggest she is neck and neck with Emmanuel Macron but unlikely to defeat him in the second round.
The Marine Le Pen story
In 2010, before being elected leader, Marine Le Pen compared Muslims praying in the street to the German occupation. But since 2011 she has softened her tone and the FN has also tried to build bridges with the Jewish community.
As the election approached her position hardened again, with a pledge to suspend all legal immigration while new rules are drafted. She also caused outrage by wrongly suggesting that France had no responsibility for the Paris round-up of 13,000 Jews deported in World War Two.
Hugh Schofield: Is France's National Front leader far-right?
Marine Le Pen, 48, trained as a lawyer and headed the FN's legal department. After years of fighting and losing French parliamentary elections, she was elected to the European Parliament in 2004 and remains an MEP, representing North-West France.
She is twice divorced with three children, and lives in the western suburbs of Paris.
What she wants:
§ Negotiation with Brussels on a new EU, followed by a referendum
§ "Automatic" expulsion of illegal immigrants and legal immigration cut to 10,000 per year following an immediate total moratorium
§ "Extremist" mosques closed and priority to French nationals in social housing
§ Retirement age fixed at 60 and 35-hour week assured
Emmanuel Macron, En Marche (On the Move)
At 39, he has a real chance of becoming France's youngest-ever president because polls suggest if he reaches the run-off on 7 May he would defeat Marine Le Pen.
He is not an MP and has never stood for election before but his political rise has been meteoric.
A brilliant student who went on to become an investment banker, Emmanuel Macron worked as economic adviser to President Hollande before taking up the post of economy minister in 2014.
He forged a reputation with his "Macron Law", a controversial reform bill that allowed shops to open more often on Sundays and deregulated some sectors of industry. He championed digital start-ups and prompted a long-distance bus market.
While a breath of fresh air for France's business community, his policies aroused opposition among the left of the governing Socialists.
But when he set up En Marche as "neither left nor right" in April 2016, his position in the Socialist government became increasingly untenable and he resigned before launching a presidential bid. He has attracted the support of veteran moderate François Bayrou as well as Socialist ex-Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
Mr Macron is married to his former French teacher Brigitte Trogneux, 20 years his senior, and has seven step-grandchildren.
What he wants:
§ €50bn (£43bn; $53bn) public investment plan to cover job-training, exit from coal and shift to renewable energy, infrastructure and modernisation
§ Reimbursement of full cost of glasses, dentures and hearing aids
§ Big cut in corporation tax and more leeway for companies to renegotiate 35-hour week
§ Cut in jobless rate to 7% (now 9.7%)
§ Ban on mobile phone use in schools for under-15s and a €500 culture pass for 18 year olds
Emmanuel Macron's meteoric rise
France's Macron joins presidential race to 'unblock France'
François Fillon, The Republicans
When Mr Fillon, 62, won his centre-right party's nomination for the presidency he immediately became the favourite.
The two men he defeated, Nicolas Sarkozy and Alain Juppé, have over the years been dogged by controversy, but now Mr Fillon is too.
His campaign has been rocked by allegations that his wife and two children improperly received public funds. Initially he said he would step aside if he was placed under formal investigation but as it became clear that was on the cards he changed his mind.
He complained he was the victim of a "political assassination" and said the voices of "millions of votes have been muzzled".
Despite the inquiry, he is not far behind the two front-runners in the polls and his campaign team remains confident.
§ Fillon payment inquiry: All you need to know
§ France's Francois Fillon under fire over women's rights
§ Francois Fillon mixes French sang-froid and radicalism
Mr Fillon studied law and married his Welsh wife, Penelope Clarke, in 1980 in Llanover, near Abergavenny. They have five children and their home is a 12th-Century manor house near Le Mans in western France.
What he wants:
§ To scrap half a million public sector jobs and the 35-hour work week
§ Removing the wealth tax (ISF)
§ To strip jihadists returning from the wars in Iraq or Syria of French nationality
§ Requiring parents in receipt of social allowances to agree to a "parental responsibility contract", to tackle children's absenteeism or behaviour "disrespectful of the values of the [French] republic"
§ Lifting EU sanctions on Russia and helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad defeat so-called Islamic State (IS).
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, La France Insoumise (France unbowed)
With the Socialists seeing a meltdown in popular support, far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 65, has sensed a possible opening in the race.
He is among the four frontrunners, polls suggest, and being hailed as a serious contender.
"Once again, they are announcing that my election win will set off a nuclear winter, a plague of frogs, Red Army tanks and a landing of Venezuelans," Mr Mélenchon commented wryly in response.
He has seized the limelight with his razor-sharp wit during televised debates and impressed the public with his hi-tech use of holograms, projecting his image to rallies in six cities simultaneously.
§ Sharp-tongued Mélenchon galvanises left
§ Jean-Luc Melenchon announces 2017 France presidency bid
Backed by France's Communist Party, he says the means of production, trade and consumption must be changed, and cites climate change as one of his concerns.
He said: "This is a tremendous opportunity to loose the bonds that paralyse us today."
A former supporter of European federalism, he argues that the EU's economic liberalism and "ideological obsessions" with avoiding debt have sapped its ability to deliver democratic change.
He left the Socialist Party in November 2008 to found the Left Party with French deputy Marc Dolez. He joined the Left Front electoral federation and was elected to the European Parliament in 2009, where he still serves.
What he wants:
§ Voting from age of 16 and a "Sixth Republic" to replace the existing presidential system
§ Constituent assembly to acquire greater powers, voted in by proportional representation
§ Renegotiate EU treaties in order to ditch austerity measures and enable the French state to pursue a massive, environment-friendly programme of state spending to stimulate the economy
§ Zero homelessness and full reimbursement for prescribed health care
§ Recognise burn-out as an occupational disease
Benoît Hamon, Socialist Party
OP: The Socialist Party is the party of current president François Hollande.
Renowned as a left-wing rebel within the Socialist party, ex-education minister Benoît Hamon decisively won the race for the party nomination, defeating former Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
Known as the "French Bernie Sanders", Mr Hamon, 49, is struggling to make headway in the presidential race, partly because of competition from Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He has also struggled to secure broad support across a divided Socialist party.
With his designer stubble and cheeky grin, he has some of the most eye-catching policies, from taxing the wealth created by robots to a universal monthly payment for French citizens. He has since had to revise his basic income plan, reducing its cost from €400bn to €35bn.
"The money party has too many candidates in this election," he told supporters. "One says 'Get rich!' and the other two say 'Make us rich!'", he complained, referring to Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen and François Fillon.
What he wants:
§ To legalise cannabis and tax the wealth generated by robots that take the jobs of humans
§ To scrap a 2016 law making it easier to hire and fire workers
§ A basic income plan to boost salaries of those earning less than €2,185 per month
§ The unemployed would receive up to €600 per month and those on the minimum wage around €200
§ Renewable energy to form 50% of electricity by 2025 and pull out of nuclear energy by 2050
Mr Hamon's partner is Gabrielle Guallar and the couple have two daughters.
Benoit Hamon to be Socialist candidate in French election
Who are the other candidates?
Six other candidates are standing in the 2017 presidential vote.
From L-R: Nathalie Arthaud, François Asselineau, Jacques Cheminade and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
-----------------------
Nathalie Arthaud, Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle), 46, Trotskyist: seeks to prohibit redundancies and job cuts, increase of salaries and pensions to €1,800, impose worker control on enterprises and ownership of means of production.
François Asselineau, Union Populaire Républicaine (Popular Republic Union), 59, Nationalist and anti-US: seeks withdrawal of France from the EU, euro and Nato, to renationalise big industries and private corporations.
Jacques Cheminade, 75, Ex-civil servant in economy ministry seeks to ditch the EU and abandon the euro. A follower of US conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, Debout La France (Stand Up France), 55, Gaullist: wants to leave the euro and scrap the EU, higher ethical standards for elected officials, put the fight against jihadist terrorism at the centre of foreign policy. Claims he received texts from the Fillon campaign urging him to withdraw his candidacy.
Jean Lassalle (L) and Philippe Poutou
-------------------
Jean Lassalle, 61, centrist, independent MP who wants to renegotiate European treaties; staged a 39-day hunger strike in 2006 in a bid to save 140 jobs at a factory and walked 5,000km across France in 2013. Hailed for his "refreshing" bursts of rhetorical frankness, as when he coarsely dismissed the value of opinion polls.
Philippe Poutou, 50, New Anti-Capitalist Party Ford factory worker who wants to lower retirement age to 60, reducing the working week to 32 hours and make abortion and contraception free and accessible. Many hailed him the star of the second presidential TV debate when he attacked Mr Fillon and Ms Le Pen over allegations of corruption.
SOURCE.
---------------------------------
OP: Other notes regarding this election include the following.
(1) There have been allegations made regarding Marine Le Pen's party's funding -namely that some of it came from Russia. (There is, as usual, debate on this, see also here.)
(2) Another issue which came up regarding Le Pen is involves the misuse of European Union funds.
(3) Emmanuel Macron claimed that his campaign was being targeted by Russian hackers.
(4) More on the allegations dogging François Fillon is here.
OP: And wow. What a NOT diverse buncha white folks there...
An important note about elections in France: there is the possibility of more than one round of voting.
From Al-Jazeera: "The first round of the French presidential election will be held on April 23. If none of the 11 candidates wins more than 50 percent, the vote goes to a second round. That run-off election will be held on May 7. The results will be announced at 8pm local time.
At the last election in 2012, won by outgoing President Francois Hollande , voter turnout was more than 80 percent, down slightly from the 2007 vote. Polls suggest turnout this year will be lower than usual. Once elected, the French president can serve a maximum of two five-year terms in office."
---------------------
French election 2017: Who are the candidates?
The five main candidates are (L-R) François Fillon, Benoît Hamon, Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon
--------------------------
Eleven candidates have joined the race for the French presidency, and the campaign is now in its final days ahead of the election on 23 April.
There are four front-runners and, as none is likely to secure an outright majority, a run-off between the two leading candidates is now expected on 7 May.
For the first time in 15 years, the far-right National Front has a realistic chance of winning the race under Marine Le Pen. Centrist Emmanuel Macron is challenging her in the opinion polls.
The former favourite, centre-right Republican François Fillon, is still in the race despite being investigated over alleged misuse of public funds. So is far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is enjoying a late surge in support.
For the first time in modern French history, the incumbent - Socialist President François Hollande - is not running for a second term because of poor ratings.
All you need to know about the French election
Marine Le Pen, National Front (FN)
She took over the FN leadership from her father in January 2011 and came third in presidential elections the following year. She brought the party big electoral gains in regional elections in late 2015.
Opinion polls suggest she is neck and neck with Emmanuel Macron but unlikely to defeat him in the second round.
The Marine Le Pen story
In 2010, before being elected leader, Marine Le Pen compared Muslims praying in the street to the German occupation. But since 2011 she has softened her tone and the FN has also tried to build bridges with the Jewish community.
As the election approached her position hardened again, with a pledge to suspend all legal immigration while new rules are drafted. She also caused outrage by wrongly suggesting that France had no responsibility for the Paris round-up of 13,000 Jews deported in World War Two.
Hugh Schofield: Is France's National Front leader far-right?
Marine Le Pen, 48, trained as a lawyer and headed the FN's legal department. After years of fighting and losing French parliamentary elections, she was elected to the European Parliament in 2004 and remains an MEP, representing North-West France.
She is twice divorced with three children, and lives in the western suburbs of Paris.
What she wants:
§ Negotiation with Brussels on a new EU, followed by a referendum
§ "Automatic" expulsion of illegal immigrants and legal immigration cut to 10,000 per year following an immediate total moratorium
§ "Extremist" mosques closed and priority to French nationals in social housing
§ Retirement age fixed at 60 and 35-hour week assured
Emmanuel Macron, En Marche (On the Move)
At 39, he has a real chance of becoming France's youngest-ever president because polls suggest if he reaches the run-off on 7 May he would defeat Marine Le Pen.
He is not an MP and has never stood for election before but his political rise has been meteoric.
A brilliant student who went on to become an investment banker, Emmanuel Macron worked as economic adviser to President Hollande before taking up the post of economy minister in 2014.
He forged a reputation with his "Macron Law", a controversial reform bill that allowed shops to open more often on Sundays and deregulated some sectors of industry. He championed digital start-ups and prompted a long-distance bus market.
While a breath of fresh air for France's business community, his policies aroused opposition among the left of the governing Socialists.
But when he set up En Marche as "neither left nor right" in April 2016, his position in the Socialist government became increasingly untenable and he resigned before launching a presidential bid. He has attracted the support of veteran moderate François Bayrou as well as Socialist ex-Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
Mr Macron is married to his former French teacher Brigitte Trogneux, 20 years his senior, and has seven step-grandchildren.
What he wants:
§ €50bn (£43bn; $53bn) public investment plan to cover job-training, exit from coal and shift to renewable energy, infrastructure and modernisation
§ Reimbursement of full cost of glasses, dentures and hearing aids
§ Big cut in corporation tax and more leeway for companies to renegotiate 35-hour week
§ Cut in jobless rate to 7% (now 9.7%)
§ Ban on mobile phone use in schools for under-15s and a €500 culture pass for 18 year olds
Emmanuel Macron's meteoric rise
France's Macron joins presidential race to 'unblock France'
François Fillon, The Republicans
When Mr Fillon, 62, won his centre-right party's nomination for the presidency he immediately became the favourite.
The two men he defeated, Nicolas Sarkozy and Alain Juppé, have over the years been dogged by controversy, but now Mr Fillon is too.
His campaign has been rocked by allegations that his wife and two children improperly received public funds. Initially he said he would step aside if he was placed under formal investigation but as it became clear that was on the cards he changed his mind.
He complained he was the victim of a "political assassination" and said the voices of "millions of votes have been muzzled".
Despite the inquiry, he is not far behind the two front-runners in the polls and his campaign team remains confident.
§ Fillon payment inquiry: All you need to know
§ France's Francois Fillon under fire over women's rights
§ Francois Fillon mixes French sang-froid and radicalism
Mr Fillon studied law and married his Welsh wife, Penelope Clarke, in 1980 in Llanover, near Abergavenny. They have five children and their home is a 12th-Century manor house near Le Mans in western France.
What he wants:
§ To scrap half a million public sector jobs and the 35-hour work week
§ Removing the wealth tax (ISF)
§ To strip jihadists returning from the wars in Iraq or Syria of French nationality
§ Requiring parents in receipt of social allowances to agree to a "parental responsibility contract", to tackle children's absenteeism or behaviour "disrespectful of the values of the [French] republic"
§ Lifting EU sanctions on Russia and helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad defeat so-called Islamic State (IS).
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, La France Insoumise (France unbowed)
With the Socialists seeing a meltdown in popular support, far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 65, has sensed a possible opening in the race.
He is among the four frontrunners, polls suggest, and being hailed as a serious contender.
"Once again, they are announcing that my election win will set off a nuclear winter, a plague of frogs, Red Army tanks and a landing of Venezuelans," Mr Mélenchon commented wryly in response.
He has seized the limelight with his razor-sharp wit during televised debates and impressed the public with his hi-tech use of holograms, projecting his image to rallies in six cities simultaneously.
§ Sharp-tongued Mélenchon galvanises left
§ Jean-Luc Melenchon announces 2017 France presidency bid
Backed by France's Communist Party, he says the means of production, trade and consumption must be changed, and cites climate change as one of his concerns.
He said: "This is a tremendous opportunity to loose the bonds that paralyse us today."
A former supporter of European federalism, he argues that the EU's economic liberalism and "ideological obsessions" with avoiding debt have sapped its ability to deliver democratic change.
He left the Socialist Party in November 2008 to found the Left Party with French deputy Marc Dolez. He joined the Left Front electoral federation and was elected to the European Parliament in 2009, where he still serves.
What he wants:
§ Voting from age of 16 and a "Sixth Republic" to replace the existing presidential system
§ Constituent assembly to acquire greater powers, voted in by proportional representation
§ Renegotiate EU treaties in order to ditch austerity measures and enable the French state to pursue a massive, environment-friendly programme of state spending to stimulate the economy
§ Zero homelessness and full reimbursement for prescribed health care
§ Recognise burn-out as an occupational disease
Benoît Hamon, Socialist Party
OP: The Socialist Party is the party of current president François Hollande.
Renowned as a left-wing rebel within the Socialist party, ex-education minister Benoît Hamon decisively won the race for the party nomination, defeating former Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
Known as the "French Bernie Sanders", Mr Hamon, 49, is struggling to make headway in the presidential race, partly because of competition from Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He has also struggled to secure broad support across a divided Socialist party.
With his designer stubble and cheeky grin, he has some of the most eye-catching policies, from taxing the wealth created by robots to a universal monthly payment for French citizens. He has since had to revise his basic income plan, reducing its cost from €400bn to €35bn.
"The money party has too many candidates in this election," he told supporters. "One says 'Get rich!' and the other two say 'Make us rich!'", he complained, referring to Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen and François Fillon.
What he wants:
§ To legalise cannabis and tax the wealth generated by robots that take the jobs of humans
§ To scrap a 2016 law making it easier to hire and fire workers
§ A basic income plan to boost salaries of those earning less than €2,185 per month
§ The unemployed would receive up to €600 per month and those on the minimum wage around €200
§ Renewable energy to form 50% of electricity by 2025 and pull out of nuclear energy by 2050
Mr Hamon's partner is Gabrielle Guallar and the couple have two daughters.
Benoit Hamon to be Socialist candidate in French election
Who are the other candidates?
Six other candidates are standing in the 2017 presidential vote.
From L-R: Nathalie Arthaud, François Asselineau, Jacques Cheminade and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
-----------------------
Nathalie Arthaud, Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle), 46, Trotskyist: seeks to prohibit redundancies and job cuts, increase of salaries and pensions to €1,800, impose worker control on enterprises and ownership of means of production.
François Asselineau, Union Populaire Républicaine (Popular Republic Union), 59, Nationalist and anti-US: seeks withdrawal of France from the EU, euro and Nato, to renationalise big industries and private corporations.
Jacques Cheminade, 75, Ex-civil servant in economy ministry seeks to ditch the EU and abandon the euro. A follower of US conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, Debout La France (Stand Up France), 55, Gaullist: wants to leave the euro and scrap the EU, higher ethical standards for elected officials, put the fight against jihadist terrorism at the centre of foreign policy. Claims he received texts from the Fillon campaign urging him to withdraw his candidacy.
Jean Lassalle (L) and Philippe Poutou
-------------------
Jean Lassalle, 61, centrist, independent MP who wants to renegotiate European treaties; staged a 39-day hunger strike in 2006 in a bid to save 140 jobs at a factory and walked 5,000km across France in 2013. Hailed for his "refreshing" bursts of rhetorical frankness, as when he coarsely dismissed the value of opinion polls.
Philippe Poutou, 50, New Anti-Capitalist Party Ford factory worker who wants to lower retirement age to 60, reducing the working week to 32 hours and make abortion and contraception free and accessible. Many hailed him the star of the second presidential TV debate when he attacked Mr Fillon and Ms Le Pen over allegations of corruption.
SOURCE.
---------------------------------
OP: Other notes regarding this election include the following.
(1) There have been allegations made regarding Marine Le Pen's party's funding -namely that some of it came from Russia. (There is, as usual, debate on this, see also here.)
(2) Another issue which came up regarding Le Pen is involves the misuse of European Union funds.
(3) Emmanuel Macron claimed that his campaign was being targeted by Russian hackers.
(4) More on the allegations dogging François Fillon is here.
OP: And wow. What a NOT diverse buncha white folks there...