French Election – No Surprise – Or Is There?
Our computer had correctly projected that Le Pen would defeat the mainstream party Socialists. Indeed, Hollende did not even run he was so unpopular. The result of this election is really now a wildcard. For the most important aspect worth underlining in BOLD is the striking fact that this is the first time in modern French history all the mainstream centre-right or centre-left parties of government that have ruled France since the World War II will not make it to stand for the second round of a presidential election.
We can now safely count that Le Pen’s base is very solid. Those who support her will be out in sheer force to take their country back – FRANCE FIRST as they are saying. The wildcard is now Macron, who just started his party last August. All the mainstream media and mainstream politicians will be throwing their support now to Macron. Mainstream press is already estimating Macron took 24% of the vote, with Le Pen close behind with 21.8%. The question is clear that his base is nowhere near as firm as that of Le Pen.
Macron is the mirror image of Trump. Just a bureaucrat, but his wife is 24 years older than him compared to Trump who is 25 years older than his wife. Macron lacks any real experience to speak of outside of government and the joke is that since men mature slower than women, he is just a boy toy who is not ready for prime time who needs his hand held when crossing streets. The two studies bantered about are curious indeed. If a man marries and older woman, she dies sooner whereas a man who marries a younger woman increases his life expectancy by at least 11%. Guess the younger girl keeps him in better shape whereas the boy toy wears out his spouse so they say. Well we have had just about every other scenario arise in politics. Guess its time to change up.
Macron’s platform is typical for a bureaucrat – something for everybody. He claims he wants to cut costs and bureaucracy to boost hiring, while promoting investment in what he called the economy of the future. These are nice vague objectives for which has has come under fire. He then came up with six main priorities: education, work, economic modernization, security, democratic renewal and international engagement.
Mean while, the ECB has firmed up plans to help bailout French banks in the middle of pending uncertainty. May is looking more and more interesting. A Le Pen victory will actually provide a soft-landing for the EU and force it to begin to look at what it is doing so terribly wrong. A Macron victory will doom the EU to a complete collapse and a hard landing in 2018. Why? Brussels will wipe their brow and cheer the end of “populism” and that means they will continue down the same road without any reform. BREXIT should have sparked some internal review. Instead, they just blame the Brits and move on.
