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....

Multicult fails, France heading for civil war, sez former intelligence chief

"All my accumulated experiences make me foresee a dark, and even very dark, future for our children and grandchildren." That's what Pierre Brochand, the former director of DGSE, France’s top intelligence agency, told Le Figaro in an interview published on March 24th.

The interview is in French (of course) and is behind a paywall, so we're quoting from a translation posted on Remix News, a trustworthy site for European news. Their summary is headed: France's former intelligence chief warns against possible civil war due to mass immigration.

The stone truth which the people of western Europe and North America recognized -- but which their woke liberal leaders won't acknowledge -- is that the mass immigration of unassimilable racial and religious minorities is destroying our societies and our countries. As M Brochand puts it,  "All 'multicultural' societies are doomed to more or less deep rifts. In such a situation, it happens that minorities are violent winners, and majorities placid losers."

According to the former DGSE head, there is so much talk about immigration in France today because it is "increasingly difficult to prevent the French from seeing what they see" -- scenes of urban guerrilla warfare, fights between police officers trying to enforce the law and violent multi-recidivist criminals that were the initial cause of riots, shootings, and arson, as well as ambushes set up against the police squads called in as reinforcements.

M Brochand goes on to say that "a breakthrough personality has suddenly appeared in the formulaic world of politics that has encouraged them to open their eyes." He is referring to Éric Zemmour, who has succeeded in placing immigration at the heart of the current campaign for the presidency of the French Republic. Polls show an overwhelming majority opposed to immigration.

Although M Zemmour has succeeded in fixing voters' focus on the immigration issue, the more moderate Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, looks like the choice of conservative voters in the election to be held later this month. An Ipsos Sopra Steria Cevipof poll for Le Monde showed the small-but-perfectly-formed incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, would lead in the first round of votes on April 10th, with 26.5% versus 21.5% for Mme Le Pen. In the April 24th run-off, the pollsters say M Macron would beat Mme Le Pen by 54% to 46%. QED.

The Remix News article notes that Éric Zemmour is drawing the biggest crowds to his election rallies, and breaking audience records during his television appearances? Ironically, it may be M Zemmou's "unacceptable views" which make Mme Le Pen look like a moderate by contrast, although they both advocate the same solution for which M Brochand argues. "If we really want to regain control over our demography, we have no other choice than to make a 180-degree turnaround, that is to say, to send the message, loud and clear, that France will no longer be, for the foreseeable future, a welcoming country. This implies a global approach to the problem and unabated resolve in its implementation."

M Brochand goes so far as to warn that if Emmanuel Macron is re-elected and France does not radically change its policy, a civil war is on the horizon. "I hold the type of immigration, which we have been experiencing for half a century, to be an event 'out of category', without precedent in our history. And, quite honestly, I confess that I do not understand how free and enlightened minds can still underestimate its seriousness."

In order to see the seriousness of it, he explains, "one just needs to enumerate coldly its characteristics" and look at "the impact of what is happening to us." He points to the massive immigration flows, the type of immigration, with mostly migrant settlers, the "absence of political and economic regulation," the fact immigrants are mostly Muslims from outside Europe, their "spirit of post-colonial revenge," their "reluctance to mix" with the French, their "preference for endogamy," their "crystallization in diasporas," their fertility rate (higher than that of the French), and above all their "non-convergent evolution over generations," i.e. the fact that younger generations born of immigrants are "even less integrated with French society than their parents." 

For the former head of French intelligence, "this gradual upheaval of the French population, if not the only challenge we face, is the only one that directly threatens civil peace on our territory."

Le Figaro asked M Brochand if it's already too late to avert the destruction of French society. He answered, "It is very late. Let us face it: We are no longer dealing with dispersed individuals, that is to say, so many 'special cases', but with diasporas -- entities formed by immigrants and their descendants...who are grouped together and whose numbers reach a critical mass sufficient for social pressure to encourage the perpetuation of the beliefs and ways of life of the countries of origin, with which relations remain tense. This way, more or less closed foreign enclaves are spontaneously formed that turn their backs on the host country and its customs."

Sadly, M Brochand is very pessimistic about his country's future: "While I refuse to give up hope, I do not have too much illusion either about the possibility of the authorities regaining control over immigration flows. When we see that the program of the incumbent president, who is running for his re-election, continues to superbly ignore the subject, one cannot but reflect on how much history can be inescapable and irreversible, even when it leads us straight to the greatest misfortunes. 

"All my accumulated experiences make me foresee a dark, and even very dark, future for our children and grandchildren. At best, they are heading toward an unsuspected collapse of their quality of life (an implosion); at worst, we are leading them to terrible confrontations (an explosion)...." 

French politics: Is Marine Le Pen going to get "out-niggered"?

In my usual coherent fashion, I will begin this update on prospects for the French presidential election, coming next May, with a story about the 45th governor of the great state of Alabama, George Corley Wallace, Jr. 

Mr Wallace served as a member of the Alabama House of Representatives and later as judge in the Third Judicial Circuit Court, hence  his nickname "the Little Judge". He was known as a moderate on racial issues, and was associated with the progressive, liberal faction of Alabama politics.

During his first campaign for the governorship in 1958, Mr Wallace spoke out against the Ku Klux Klan, and although he endorsed segregation his centrist views won him the support of the NAACP. In contrast, his opponent John Patterson accepted the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan and made racial issues a major part of his campaign.

Mr Patterson won the race for governor by a large margin. After this defeat, the Little Judge determined that in order to be elected governor he would have to change his position on racial issues, and told one of his campaign officials, "I was out-niggered by John Patterson. And I'll tell you here and now, I will never be out-niggered again." And he wasn't!

What (I hear you ask) does this have to do with French politics? Just this. Until recently, Walt's favourite Frenchperson, Marine Le Pen, leader of the conservative/populist Rassemblement National (National Rally), looked a good bet to defeat the incumbent President Macron, if not in the first round, then in the second, which includes only the two candidates who got the most votes in the earlier round. See "Referendum on immigration? What a novel idea!", WWW 10/10/21. 

But suddenly another contender has emeerged, from even deeper in right field. Behold Éric Zemmour, described by the controlled media as "a Donald Trump-like TV pundit". M Zemmour has not officially announced his candidacy, but has been organizing Trump-style rallies, and is expected to throw his chapeau into the ring very soon.

Éric Zemmour is considered even more right-wing than Mme Le Pen, who has noticebly softened some of the RN rhetoric, in an attempt to appeal to more moderate voters. M Zemmour, on the other hand, does not shy from calling a spade a spade. 

According to the Financial Times, he has been convicted twice of "racial or religious provocation", and has just published a book on the sujbect of national identity, La France n'a pas dit son dernier mot, which has sold 100,000 copies in the first week.

According to respected journalist Yves Mamou, M Zemmour represents the France of yesteryear: the France of Napoleon, Notre Dame de Paris and General Charles de Gaulle, a France that does not want to become an Islamic Republic. He often says "the danger for France is to become a second Lebanon," by which he means a country fragmented between sectarian communities that hate and fear one another.

M Zemmour (still quoting M Mamou) is the man who broke through the glass ceiling to insert into the media discussion topics such as "immigration" and "jihad" -- which no one had ever dared to talk about publicly. He is a man who embodies the fear of seeing traditional France -- the one of church steeples and the "baguette" -- disappear under the blows of jihad and political correctness.

The meteoric rise of Zemmour has had a second effect: he has broken a degrading electoral trap in which the French people are stuck: dividing the right to prevent them from returning to power. From the middle of the eighties until now, the media and the left, together, manufactured an industrial-strength shame-machine to stigmatize as "racist" and "Nazi" anyone who dared to raise his voice on issues of immigration.

M Mamou concludes: The Zemmour fight is just beginning. One thing, however, is certain: Zemmour is restoring an authentic democratic debate about topics -- security, immigration, Islam -- that really matter to the French. 

He's right about that, but I'm not so sure about his assertion that M Zemmour has broken the electoral trap, the splitting of the conservative/rightist vote. According to Politico's Poll  of Polls, President Macron is currently polling around 24%, with Mme Le Pen at 16% and M Zemmour at 15%. That sure looks like a split to me!

If only one candidate presented a real alternative to M Macron and his centre-left, one-world policies, he could be defeated. If that candidate were to be M Zemmour, there is the added problem that he's on his own. Without a primary system such as obtains in the US of A, he cannot take the leadership of the RN away from Mme Le Pen. He would be a "party of one".

If M Zemmour runs as an independent, all he can do is "out-nigger" Mme Le Pen, to the detriment of both of them and another seven years in opposition for those who represent the France of de Gaulle. Tant pis pour eux. Tant pis pour la France!