French presidential election: hold your applause

Ed. here. I was a little late getting in this morning, and failed to prevent Walt from committing the grave sin of combining two topics into one post. The Michael Matt video about Viktor Orbán and the "Current Thing" should have been separated from the preceding thoughts on yesterday's French election. For readers who went right to the video without reading what came before, here's what Walt had to say about the results... and what he thinks will happen on April 24th.

Frenchmen and women voted yesterday in the first round of the election for the preisdency of the French Republic. Walt rejoiced (see previous post) when Marine Le Pen fnished a strong second to "Effete Emmanuel" Macron, whom she will now face in the runoff election on April 24th. 

However, I must warn you, dear readers, to be careful how you bet. A superficial analysis of yesterday's result suggests that Mme Le Pen would have finished first, but for the candidacy of the extremist Eric Zemmour, who got a little over 7% of the vote. 

You would think his supporters would go to Mme Le Pen in the runoff. That would be fine, except that it would give Mme Le Pen about 31% of the vote, which would be far from enough to win a straight two-way fight. 

The likelihood of large numbers of centrists, leftists and Communists moving into the National Rally camp is slim. More likely is an ABLP coalition which would push M Macron into the Élysée Palace for a second term -- just as it did in 2015. Walt will be hoping (and praying!) otherwise, but betting? Nooooo....