The Next President of France will be...

Bob24

pumpkin4life wrote: »

http://presicote.factoviz.com/index/more/id/qoo_lew_1

This is interesting. While most people think Macron is going to win, Le Pen is drawn pretty much (off 1%) with him in terms of who do you want to win. Throw in the social desirability bias and some of the flaws of the poll and its reasonable enough to say Le Pen is the most popular candidate in the country, the biggest chunk of people in the country want her to win.

Notice the gap as well between people wanting Macron to win and thinking he will win. This translates into a poorer turnout rate for Macron.

Officially upgraded (also in light of the past while) Le Pens chances from non, to outsidery 30 or so percent.

If Le Pen kills it in the first round, who knows where this can go.

Good link to follow how things are shaping day to day, I'll bookmark it.

I think Macron is paying for the fact that he has nothing to say about the riots of the last few days and on top of that has accused France of crime against humanity in Algeria before trying to backtrack as he realised it was losing him voters. And of course those are the kind of topics which benefit to Le Pen.

CelticRambler

Banana Republican wrote: »

Amazing the lack of coverage the widespread riots in Paris are getting on MSM. If it was the far right you'd be seeing wall to wall coverage on the likes of CNN and Sky.

You'd almost swear they had an agenda.

Banana Republican wrote: »

It's not a standalone incident. This is one of many this week alone.

This is yet another example of how the outside world doesn't understand France! These "riots" are not newsworthy - this is all part and parcel of a normal French week. If it's not white youths rioting over their right to have permanent pensionable jobs, it's their farmer or union-member parents smashing up a town centre demanding that the state buys whatever overpriced goods or services they produce. In between times, the disenfranchised black youth will usually find some half-decent reason to behave like the franco-romano-celtic natives.

pumpkin4life wrote: »

http://presicote.factoviz.com/index/more/id/qoo_lew_1

This is interesting. While most people think Macron is going to win, Le Pen is drawn pretty much (off 1%) with him in terms of who do you want to win. Throw in the social desirability bias and some of the flaws of the poll and its reasonable enough to say Le Pen is the most popular candidate in the country, the biggest chunk of people in the country want her to win.

Wishful thinking! Look at the percentages - they add up to just short of one hundred percent, so the "who do you want" question is only a slight variation on the theme of "who are you likely to vote for", and it's not the least bit surprising that Macron has a lower score, as most of his support comes from people who had expected to have an entirely different (LR or PS) candidate on the ballot paper.

pumpkin4life wrote: »

If Le Pen kills it in the first round, who knows where this can go.

A big if, and what indication is there that she's going to kill it, when she's currently polling "just about fairly average" for the supposed favourite (Sarkozy was on around 30% at this point in 2007, Hollande at about 28% in 2012)?

Despite all the hoo-hah, all the riots, all the "terrorism" and everything else, MLP's support hasn't budged at all over the course of this election's opinion polling ... and it won't. As has been pointed out several times in this thread, she has her core vote, who are motivated to turn out and vote for her; and she is despised by the other 75% of the electorate. Her admission today that she willingly commited fraud in claiming European parliament expenses probably won't change anything in her supporters' minds, but will reinforce in everyone else's opinion that she's the kind thieving low-life extremist that deserves no place in France's government.

Incidentally, there are moves afoot by the Greens & Co. to negotiate a deal between Mélenchon and Hamon so as to present one common candidate between the three parties. If they can pull it off and pool their individual shares, that'll really shake things up - based on current polls, a Hamo=chon candidate would get 26%, knocking MLP off her pedastel and (potentially) Macron into third place. After all the scandal, the Fillonists would, in the end, become the kingmakers! :cool:

Chips Lovell

Banana Republican wrote: »

Amazing the lack of coverage the widespread riots in Paris are getting on MSM. If it was the far right you'd be seeing wall to wall coverage on the likes of CNN and Sky.

You'd almost swear they had an agenda.

I've been reading about it in the papers for the past week?

Bob24

CelticRambler wrote: »

she is despised by the other 75% of the electorate.

She is completely rejected by by circa 50% I think. This is a lot higher than other candidates, but I don't it is right to say she is despised by 75% of the electorate (those times are gone and she has a much larger reach); and the fact that numerous second round polls give her scores of 40% or above kind of invalidates that statement. I still don't see her wining at this stage, but it would be a mistake to think she can't increase her first round potential or grow between the two rounds.

CelticRambler

Bob24 wrote: »

the fact that numerous second round polls give her scores of 40% or above kind of invalidates that statement.

I'm open to correction if anyone can produce the detail, but I think all those ">40%" surveys are seriously flawed, and only arise from a Fillon vs. LePen contest, where the broad left are saying to the pollsters "I wouldn't vote for either". So in effect, it's 40-45% of the Right saying they would vote for LePen - which we knew anyway - but not necessarily reflecting what would happen in real life.

In all the other suggested contests, MLP is well-and-truly beaten by a margin of about two-to-one.

If we'd been looking at a Right vs Far Right round 2, I'd have been worried that a high abstention rate would have allowed MLP in almost by accident, but now that Fillon is a dead duck, we're back to Far Right vs. Centre/Centre-Left/Left and a 35-65 defeat for MLP.

Bayrou looks like he'll lose his deposit if he runs, which favours Macron, so that Hamon-Mélenchon alliance must surely be looking attractive to those two left-of-the-left candidates.

Bob24

Looking at pumpkin4life's link above, she is also currently at 40% vs Macron in the second round and rising (and she scores only marginally better against Fillon).

In the second round Macron's very liberal economic views are pushing some of the far left to Le Pen who pretty much is an old school socialist as far as the economy is concerned, and his very liberal and globalist societal views are preventing him from capturing all of Fillon's voters. As of today's figures those 2 groups give her 14% gain between the 2 rounds.

Edit: this other daily pool gives her at 37.5% vs Macron: http://www.parismatch.com/La-presidentielle-en-temps-reel
What is interesting as well is that the percentage of people saying they have made a definite choice is dropping, maiming that people are reconsidering what they though were their final decisions. This mean we are likely to see things changing in the coming weeks.

pumpkin4life

Two things:

1: Social desirability bias + low responses for CAPI, and no following the same people throughout time. Don't put all your faith in that one poll. It's not exactly the best. I just picked it for the difference between the want and think question.

2: Having said that, if that Le Pen slides up a few percentage points for the second round (3-5%, up from 40%) then despite its flaws, we're into Trump "but he's not going to win" polling all over again ground. 45 percent and I'm back to the stock market on Le Pen.

3: Even though I predicted Brexit, Ireland elections and Trump very accurately (arrogant pumpkin time:P) I know feck all about France/French people so I'll happily admit that I'm far more likely to be very wrong here and talking shìte here.

KingBrian2

The French left or centre right will have to win over the protesters on the streets. Get them to start voting for their candidates instead of letting Le Pen hijack the election.

Bob24

Another exemple of why I think Macron is going to eventually collapse due to his contradictions. When he was talking to liberal media he was in favour of at least partly legalising the use of cannabis. But in an interview with a conservative right wing paper this week he became strongly opposed to it, triggering questions on whether he had changed is mind.

The way he is adapting his opinions to the media he is talking to and that media's target audience has worked well to date as people were not paying too much attention to him and only seeing what they liked in their preferred media. But now that he is on the spotlight he will have to eventually bring all those (often contradictory) ideas together in single manifesto people can refer to, and this will for sure disappoint many people.

Hank Scorpio

Not sure if certain people will find this relevant, but it's the most appropriate place for it

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/832283161304371201

KingBrian2

It is troubling that America has to spy on its allies.

Bob24

No big surprise though, I doubt this will have any effect on the current campaign.

Bob24

Bob24 wrote: »

She is completely rejected by by circa 50% I think. This is a lot higher than other candidates, but I don't it is right to say she is despised by 75% of the electorate (those times are gone and she has a much larger reach); and the fact that numerous second round polls give her scores of 40% or above kind of invalidates that statement. I still don't see her wining at this stage, but it would be a mistake to think she can't increase her first round potential or grow between the two rounds.

On this I heard something very interesting and not very well published from a pollster yesterday at the daily TV programme "24 heures en question" (IMO pretty good programme to understand French politics if you speak French by the way, and available to stream online from Ireland).

The guy said they are running polls to test many combinations of second round potential candidates, but legally they are not allowed to publish them unless both candidates tested for the second round are given as having a good chance to make it through the first round by the pollster (I find the rule as it is defined strange, but apparently the reasoning of French lawmakers was that publishing "unlikely" scenarios for the second round before the vote could influence the first round - for example make some voters vote for someone who is a bit further from their ideas but has higher chances of winning in the second round than their ideal candidate). This is why then only second round poll we are seening are Le Pen / Fillon and Le Pen / Macron.

And while he didn't give hard numbers as he is legally not allowed to do so, he did everything he could to suggest the data he has shows that Le Pen would be likely to win if she was facing someone like Hamon in the second round. So basically while she is still not seen as a winner vs Macron or Fillon (though she is getting closer in both cases), I think the important point he wanted to make there is that gathering over 50% of the votes in the second round is definitely not impossible for her provided she is facing the right opponent. If he is correct (and I don't see why not) this is something very new as until now the assumption was that the majority would vote for a monkey rather than voting for Le Pen.

Hank Scorpio

Bold statement by Le Pen today.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-lepen-idUSKBN1600R6

"I met the grand mufti of Al-Azhar," she told reporters, referring to a visit in 2015 to Cairo's 1,000-year-old center of Islamic learning. "The highest Sunni authority didn't have this requirement, but it doesn't matter.

"You can pass on my respects to the grand mufti, but I will not cover myself up," she said.

The cleric's press office said Le Pen's aides had been informed beforehand that a headscarf was required for the meeting and had been "surprised by her refusal".

Chips Lovell

Not wearing one isn't terribly controversial. After all:

Le Pen's refusal to wear the head covering is far from unique: Many other female politicians from around the globe including Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen, Hillary Clinton and former US First Ladies Laura Bush and Michelle Obama all refused to wear veils on diplomatic visits to Saudi Arabia, where every female who lives there is required to have her head and body covered in public.

Not to mention our own Mary Robinson's refusal to wear a mantilla when meeting the pope in 1997. At this stage, it would probably have been more controversial to wear one.

Bob24

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Not wearing one isn't terribly controversial. After all:

Those can't be compared though.

Refusing to wear a headscarf to attend a meeting with a top national religious leader in a religious context is not the same as refusing to wear it in public.

Also another different aspect is that all the other woman politicians listed were either in top government jobs or first ladies - i.e. direct representatives of strong Western countries on official state visits - which put them in a different position from someone who is merely an MEP and presidential candidate on a private visit and thus doesn't officially represent their country in any way.

But regardless, both Le Pen and the Mufti were probably looking at getting some good PR effect for their target audience out of this, and to some extend both got what they wanted. I don't think there is more than this into it.

Chips Lovell

There's no doubt it was. It was flagged in advance but she still showed up in order to walk out.

Bob24

Btw - confirming that many people doing online bets are just looking at instant daily pools rather than trying to understand the dynamics of French politics, I can see that a day after Fillon was given ahead of Macron in some polls, the odds for him to win on bwin are now more favourable than Macron's again.

Rjd2

Bob24 wrote: »

Btw - confirming that many people doing online bets are just looking at instant daily pools rather than trying to understand the dynamics of French politics, I can see that a day after Fillon was given ahead of Macron in some polls, the odds for him to win on bwin are now more favourable than Macron's again.

Betting market is all over the place, the fact is most of them are laying Le Pen so the true price for her to win you will never see as they are all terrified of Brexit and Trump happening again.

However as a Macron punter, I can't complain.;)

Bayrou not going to run, should ensure Macron gets into the final 2. 9/4 for him still out and about.:D

Bob24

Rjd2 wrote: »

Bayrou not going to run, should ensure Macron gets into the final 2. 9/4 for him still out and about.:D

Don't be jumping horses :-) Macron has started to lose his mojo and I am not sure Bayrou withdrawing will help him as much as some expect. Bayrou supporters don't automatically become Macron supporters and I personally know a few people who were waiting for Bayrou's announcement and hoping he would be candidate so that they can vote for him, but would never vote for Macron.

Rjd2

Bob24 wrote: »

Don't be jumping horses :-) Macron has started to lose his mojo and I am not sure Bayrou withdrawing will help him as much as some expect. Bayrou supporters don't automatically become Macron supporters and I personally know a few people who were waiting for Bayrou's announcement and hoping he would be candidate so that they can vote for him, but would never vote for Macron.

Maybe, but not as if Le Pen and Fillon are having good weeks. Le Pen's offices were raided and people close to her have been arrested while the corruption over fillon won't go away. Lets ignore our personal opinion on their policies, we should admit they are 3 flawed candidates, I just think Macron is less flawed.;)

Bob24

Rjd2 wrote: »

Maybe, but not as if Le Pen and Fillon are having good weeks. Le Pen's offices were raided and people close to her have been arrested while the corruption over fillon won't go away.

I'd say Le Pen is immune to legal/moral scandals unless she becomes completely impeached. Look at what has been happening in the past week: there are much more severe things happening around her that did around Fillon, and yet she is either maintaining or improving her score in the polls. And yeah Fillon has a problem but on the other hand it has shown that is has a very dedicated voter's base who won't easily let him drop much below 20%.

Rjd2 wrote: »

Lets ignore our personal opinion on their policies, we should admit they are 3 flawed candidates, I just think Macron is less flawed.;)

I think the part in bolt is your personal opinion ;-) But yes agreed none of them are very appealing, and a majority of French voters probably think the same.

An Ciarraioch

Macron and Bayrou have joined forces - gives EM a branch network for the Assembly elections, and Macron 2-5% extra for round one.

Rjd2

Bob24 wrote: »

I'd say Le Pen is immune to legal/moral scandals unless she becomes completely impeached. Look at what has been happening in the past week: there are much more severe things happening around her that did around Fillon, and yet she is either maintaining or improving her score in the polls. And yeah Fillon has a problem but on the other hand it has shown that is has a very dedicated voter's base who won't easily let him drop much below 20%.



I think the part in bolt is your personal opinion ;-) But yes agreed none of them are very appealing, and a majority of French voters probably think the same.

Le Pen clearly has a loyal fanbase, I dunno maybe 25-30% would need to be paid not to vote for her, but while that can get it done in round one, it won't in round 2. I know its easy to point to Trump who many on the right loathed, but he was running against someone who many right wingers would regard as the anti christ in a Clinton:pac:

I don't think the same loathing from the centre right exists towards Macron and that is something that will be tough to build in a few months.

You got to remember many republicans have spend their lives hating Clinton. :P

From a betting POV, backing Macron at these odds makes sense to me, if its Le Pen v Macron in the second round, it will be easy enough to lock in a profit.

Might need a loan of its Fillon v Hamon though.

Bob24

Rjd2 wrote: »

Might need a loan of its Fillon v Hamon though.

Ah ... Hamon would turn my 25 euros into 850 euros (as would anyone but Fillon, Le Pen, or Macron), but I'm not counting on him!! :-D

On the Clinton comparison, on one hand yes I agree with you Macron is not as much hated as Clinton by some of the electorate (as you said he doesn't have the lifetime in politics behind him which allowed Clinton's opponents to build-up their rejection for decades). But at the same time he is ideologically very close to her, and Le Pen vs Macron would be a pretty similar ideological battle as Trump vs Clinton (I know I am over-sumarising it, but in short conservative-protectionist v.s. libertarian-liberal). From that perspective there are reasons for people who want less economic liberalism or less social liberalism to fully reject Macron and go for Le Pen to avoid it if she is the only other option available (same as some Republicans who didn't particularly like Trump voted for him anyway because the wanted the Supreme Court to become more conservative and not more liberal as it would redefine the country beyond who was elected president, and it was the only way to achieve that).

But hey - that would only matters if he made it to the second round! (we'll have to dig out each other's posts after the election ;-))

Bob24

Btw - I guess it won't come as a surprise to anyone, but Hamon is on a dangerous slope ... he could be overtaken by Mélanchon soon if he doesn't recover, which beyond the presidential election would be a serious issue for the socialist party at the parliamentary elections as if this is the kind of score they can achieve it would give them very few MPs - i.e. much less public funding and an imploding party.



(from the opinionlab daily poll)

Bob24

Latest poll commissioned by Le Figaro / LCI / RTL:



(the figures in the middle column are the percentage of people who say they have made a definite choice about who to vote for, mapped to which candidate their support)

Macron is doing well in the first round, but one important point to note is how much Le Pen is progressing both vs Macron and vs Fillon in the second round (charts on the right column): she gained 7% vs Macro and 5% vs Filon since the same poll last month, and the gap between her and them is getting pretty close to the poll's error margin (I think for a sample of 1000 voters and these second round scores, the error margin is +/- 3%).

Bob24

Fillon cancelled his planned activities for the morning and is about to hold a press conference. Rumours goes that he could withdraw due being formally charge with misuse if public funds (which wouldn't mean he is guilty, but he had said before that some in this situation shouldn't be a candidate). Nothing confirmed yet though.

Bob24

So he is being summoned by a judge on the 15th of March in order to be formally charged, but he said he will keep going anyway.

I'd say it will really make it difficult for him, but the timing of these things is genuinely troubling. He will be charged only 2 days before the deadline to formally become a candidate, which makes it impossible to find a backup after that (each candidate needs 500 signatures provided in person by elected officials, which takes some time to organise).

Really the strangest campaign France has seen in a long time, and I think more could happen.

Rjd2

Truly bizarre stuff that from Fillon, he is ****ed and he is not giving the party a chance to get a replacement in time.

However...

NAIL.ON.THE.HEAD

https://twitter.com/youngvulgarian/status/836903203853721600

Rjd2

https://twitter.com/pierrebri/status/836930281005252608

A mess and from all accounts a massive loss to the campaign.

He promised to step down if charged and well nope!

I imagine many of his party are seething.

EDIT

http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2017/live/2017/03/01/en-direct-suivez-l-actualite-politique_5087200_4854003.html?highlight=742623105#xtor=AL-32280258

Brutal resignation letter, best of luck Francois!

Bob24

Rjd2 wrote: »

Truly bizarre stuff that from Fillon, he is ****ed and he is not giving the party a chance to get a replacement in time.

I really am not sure, but if other party leaders think it is too late to launch a replacement, some might also be pushing him to keep going (in a gamble either to be behind him if he still manages to win, or to sacrifice him and move on if he loses).

Rjd2

Macron's day just keeps getting better and better:D

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/european-union-vote-lift-marine-le-pen-immunity-tweet-isis-violence-a7604506.html

Bob24

Rjd2 wrote: »

Macron's day just keeps getting better and better:D

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/european-union-vote-lift-marine-le-pen-immunity-tweet-isis-violence-a7604506.html

I am not too sure. If two of the 3 top contenders get near-impeached so close to the deadline through similar mechanisms, the already existing feel with some voters that the game is rigged will grow even more and could make things unpredictable.

PopePalpatine

Macron is now Evens to win the Presidency, but Le Pen is now just 2/1 (or 12/5 on Betfair Exchange). Unsurprisingly, no-one's offering Le Pen & Macron to be the finalists. :pac:

KingBrian2

All the candidates seem to have allegations and charges against them going into the campaign. Waiting to see another perp walk like what happened to DSK.

Rjd2

Bob24 wrote: »

I am not too sure. If two of the 3 top contenders get near-impeached so close to the deadline through similar mechanisms, the already existing feel with some voters that the game is rigged will grow even more and could make things unpredictable.

Get on the Macron bandwagon before its full.

The good news for Le Pen is this case won't be wrapped up until well after the election and its unlikely to hurt her core base, but its another thing that won't really help with the moderates which she will need in the second round.

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Macron is now Evens to win the Presidency, but Le Pen is now just 2/1 (or 12/5 on Betfair Exchange). Unsurprisingly, no-one's offering Le Pen & Macron to be the finalists. :pac:

https://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-ie/betting/politics/french/


Credit where its due, Ladbrokes are, doing much more than other bookies with this election. 4/7 they are offering for Le Pen and Macron to be in round 2.

Yeah its a good point Bob, and to be fair the case won't be concluded until well after

Bob24

Rjd2 wrote: »

Get on the Macron bandwagon before its full.

The good news for Le Pen is this case won't be wrapped up until well after the election and its unlikely to hurt her core base, but its another thing that won't really help with the moderates which she will need in the second round.

I was just watching a TV talk on this (24 heures en questions which I mentioned before), and one pollster kind of said the same as I did: if Fillon gets impeached, many right wing voters (his strong core support of 18-20%) will feel the election has been stolen from them and a good number coud go to Le Pen as a protest (and actually feel closer to her due to their anger about what happened to him and the fact that she might be seen as been in a similar situation).

Now things could change fast and we'll see how it goes.

Jurgen Klopp

Of course this attempt to charge Le Pen over punishing violent images could backfire and hopefully does ala the Wildeers effect.

When he got convicted and fined for hate speech didn't his popularity go up even more?

KingBrian2

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

Of course this attempt to charge Le Pen over punishing violent images could backfire and hopefully does ala the Wildeers effect.

When he got convicted and fined for hate speech didn't his popularity go up even more?

Yeah great way to make the far right more popular keep giving them the attention they crave.

Leonard Hofstadter

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

Of course this attempt to charge Le Pen over punishing violent images could backfire and hopefully does ala the Wildeers effect.

When he got convicted and fined for hate speech didn't his popularity go up even more?

Indeed it did, but there was a poll yesterday which showed Wildeers trailing VVD (whoever they might be) by 3%. Granted there are still polls showing Wildeers ahead, but there seems to be a (slight) trend away from them again, thanks be to God.

Professor Moriarty

captainspeed wrote: »

Indeed it did, but there was a poll yesterday which showed Wildeers trailing VVD (whoever they might be) by 3%. Granted there are still polls showing Wildeers ahead, but there seems to be a (slight) trend away from them again, thanks be to God.

His party is set to win just 24 seats out of 150 according to polls. Also, no mainstream party will go into coalition with him.

The VVD is the largest party in the current parliament with 41 seats.

Bob24

So Macron is clarifying is manifesto today and just announced he plans to cut 120000 civil servant jobs and align the civil service pension scheme with the private sector one (civil servants are currently treated fairly better).

Since many voters are civil servants and he had attracted many of them as supporters, it will be interesting to see how they react to this (some could flock back to Hamon and the Socialist Party who has shown he has no problem promising to spend public money countlessly to gain votes).

Chips Lovell

Jurgen Klopp wrote: »

Of course this attempt to charge Le Pen over punishing violent images could backfire and hopefully does ala the Wildeers effect.

When he got convicted and fined for hate speech didn't his popularity go up even more?

I think there's a good chance it could increase rather than decrease her support. But what are the prosecutors meant to do? Ignore it? In which case they open themselves up to charges of dropping investigations for political reasons.

Bob24

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

I think there's a good chance it could increase rather than decrease her support. But what are the prosecutors meant to do? Ignore it? In which case they open themselves up to charges of dropping investigations for political reasons.

Until this year the unwritten rule in France had been for prosecutors to keep anything related to a presidential candidate on hold in the few month leading to an election and resume afterwards, not to be seen as interfering with the democratic process.

They changed that with Fillon and now Le Pen, which people will find reasons to agree or disagree with but is causing these unseen situations .

CrabRevolution

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

His party is set to win just 24 seats out of 150 according to polls. Also, no mainstream party will go into coalition with him.

The VVD is the largest party in the current parliament with 41 seats.

I've seen a few comments on line like "Brexit was just the start, just wait tilll Le Pen and Wilders get elected and watch the EU collapse".

While on the day Le Pen has a fighting chance, and I'd be wary of writing her off, I've no idea though how they think Wilders will be in power considering even the most favourable opinion polls (last February) still only gave his Party for Freedom 25% of the seats. They're currently predicted to win about 19%.

On the off chance the Party for Freedom do cobble together a coalition, every other party with 10+ seats seems pretty pro EU (or at least EU tolerant, like Sinn Féin), so I can't see a referendum being part of the programme for government.

Bob24

And in the meantime Fillon is starting to lose support from within his own party (member of rival factions which supported Juppé and Le Maire at the primary election), which hadn't really happened until now and will be a big problem for him if it keeps going.

An Ciarraioch

Bob24 wrote: »

And in the meantime Fillon is starting to lose support from within his own party (member of rival factions which supported Juppé and Le Maire at the primary election), which hadn't really happened until now and will be a big problem for him if it keeps going.

The UDI grouping started out as a pro-RPR faction of the UDF, so, because of their liberal origins, could easily swing behind Macron now.

Rjd2

Juppe into 3/1 with the bookies:eek:

Looks like Fillon will step down if his rally on Sunday is not successful.

http://www.politico.eu/article/fillon-to-quit-presidential-race-if-sunday-rally-flops-aide/

Bob24

Rjd2 wrote: »

Juppe into 3/1 with the bookies:eek:

Looks like Fillon will step down if his rally on Sunday is not successful.

http://www.politico.eu/article/fillon-to-quit-presidential-race-if-sunday-rally-flops-aide/

Yes pressure is building-up on Fillon and if he can't demonstrate he is strongly backed by a good group of voters it will become difficult not to withdraw.

It's definitely not done yet, but I'd like to see Bayrou's face if his friend Juppé comes back and he has to campaign (and probably lose) against him now that he has joined Macron! :-D