After strong debate performance, Fillon surged ahead of Juppe and Sarkozy in recent days, outperforming all polls to become the man te beat in the final primary with Juppe. Former president Sarkozy concedes defeat and retires from public service.
Fillon has a strong economic agenda and wants to restore relations with Russia.
Socialist leader and president Hollande is at an all time low in popularity ranking as worst French president ever.
As it happened: Fillon tops French conservative primary | France24 |
Former French prime ministers François Fillon and Alain Juppé will vie for the conservative nomination in a primary run-off after handing former president Nicolas Sarkozy a shock defeat on Sunday. Follow the events as they happened with our liveblog.
- Fillon stunned his opponents by taking more that 44% of the vote, well ahead of Juppé (28%) and Sarkozy (20%).
- The former president has conceded defeat and endorsed Fillon for the nomination.
- In his concession speech, Sarkozy said: “I have no bitterness, I have no sadness, and I wish the best for my country.”
- Organisers reported strong turnout of around four million voters.
- The suprising result puts Fillon, a pro-business conservative, in a commanding position ahead of next week’s second round.
- With the ruling Socialists all but written off, opinion polls suggest whoever wins the nomination will likely face – and defeat – far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the presidential run-off.
François Fillon: Very pro-free market, wants to cut 500,000 civil service jobs and reduce immigration to the “strict minimum”, said that Donald Trump’s election as US president should lead Europe to review its relations with Russia.
West ‘provoked’ Russia, says former French PM François Fillon | Politico EU – July, 2016 |
François Fillon, a former French prime minister who is now running for president, said the West was largely to blame for inflaming tensions with Russia. He called for closer cooperation with the Russian president on security, notably in fighting ISIL.
“I think [the West] made huge errors” in dealing with Russia after the Soviet Union’s collapse,” Fillon told journalists at the European-American press club in Paris. “We committed errors that led to the tensions that we know today … We partly provoked the situation.”
Having behaved in an “irresponsible” manner toward Moscow, the West now had to “find a way to speak to Russia,” Fillon said. “We have a challenge in keeping Russia focused on Europe and not sliding toward Asia.”
The best way to restore relations was to bring Russia into the Western-led coalition against ISIL and collaborate to crush the terrorist group, he added.
‘Acute Russophilia’
Fillon, who polls show to be ranked third in the race to win the Right’s nomination for president behind ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy and frontrunner Alain Juppé, is one of several members of the Républicains party urging the West to lift economic sanctions against Moscow and to pursue closer ties.
Sarkozy defeated in primary for French right’s presidential candidate | The Guardian |
François Fillon, a 62-year-old Paris MP, is the the epitome of the traditional provincial right. He is a Catholic from a village in north-west France, where he lived in a 12th-century chateau with his Welsh wife and their five children during a long career in local politics.
A tea-drinking anglophile, he has broken ranks with the long-running statist tradition of the French right to propose the most radical pro-business reform programme – vowing to cut a staggering 500,000 public sector jobs over five years. Attacked for going too far with proposed state cuts by Juppé, Fillon said in his final rally: “I’m tagged with an [economically] liberal label in the same way one would paint crosses on the doors of lepers in the middle ages. But I’m just a pragmatist.”
- ○ François Fillon Wins Spotlight as French Republicans Hold First Primary | Bloomberg |
○ Pro-Russian candidates win Moldovan, Bulgarian presidential elections | France24 |
○ Turkish PM Erdoğan to Putin: Take us to Shanghai | Hürriyet Daily News |
More below the fold …
[Update-1] :: It’s François Fillon In A Landslide Win
It’s François Fillon In A Landslide Win
Fillon claims landslide win in French conservative presidential primary …
Former prime minister François Fillon on Sunday pledged deep economic reforms after winning the conservative Les Republicains’ presidential nomination.
Fillon, 62, resoundingly beat in-party rival Alain Juppé in France’s conservative presidential primary run-off, one week after he shocked the country’s political landscape by topping the first-round poll.
He earned 66.5 percent of votes in Sunday’s election, with Juppé trailing far behind with 33.5 percent support, results showed.
“Voters have understood my strategy: France can’t bear its decline. It wants truth and it wants action,” Fillon told supporters gathered to follow the primary results in central Paris. “I will accept this challenge for France: to tell the truth and completely change its software.”
François Fillon wins French primary to be candidate for the right | The Guardian |
In his victory speech, Fillon said the Socialist François Hollande’s presidency had been “pathetic” and France now had to be overhauled in a way that it “hasn’t been for 30 years”. He said France had a huge need for respect, pride and, overall, authority.
On the campaign trail Fillon, who will stand for the Republican party, argued: “France is more rightwing than it has ever been,” and that he was the only one able to tap into that mood and win France’s “ideological battle”.
He warned that France was “on the verge of revolt” and said his plan to slash half a million public sector jobs, reduce the welfare state, cut taxes for the rich and loosen business regulations was the only possible response for a demoralised country struggling with mass unemployment, a sluggish economy and a major terrorist threat.
…
Fillon, who is on first-name terms with Vladimir Putin after they served as prime ministers in the same period, has advocated a stridently pro-Putin policy towards Russia. He said Russia was no threat, should be a partner in Syria and that European sanctions against Russia should be lifted.
Analysis: François Fillon’s victory creates strategy problem for Marine Le Pen | The Guardian |
The Front National has reason to fear Fillon. His traditionalist and socially conservative line on family values and “the Christian roots of France”, his emphasis on French national identity, “sovereignty” and “patriotism”, his hard line on immigration and Islam as well as a pro-Putin foreign agenda against “American imperialism” all overlap with some of Le Pen’s key ideas.
This could potentially see Fillon steal some of Le Pen’s most socially conservative voters, particularly rightwing elderly people, who always have a big turnout to vote but remain sceptical about the Front National.
“Fillon presents us with a strategy problem, he’s the most dangerous [candidate] for the Front National,” Marion Maréchal Le Pen, the Catholic and socially conservative Front National MP and niece of Marine Le Pen, told journalists this week.
Figment of imagination …
Putin has been supporting right-wing movements across the West in order to weaken NATO
Care to back this statement with arguments, examples ar a link to an excellent article?
Looking at most of “New Europe”, it’s the other way around … fascist states allied with Nazi Germany against communism, participating in massacres of Jewish fellow citizens and functioning as a spearhead for US intelligence against communism after the defeat of Nazi Germany – see Gladio. Now used by the CIA in the coup d’état in Ukraine in Februari 2014.
Ahhh … searched for it myself, a paper written earlier in 2016 … how convenient!
○ Putinism and the European Far Right | IMR|
The paper, authored by Alina Polyakova, Ph.D., deputy director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council , was originally presented at the 2015 ASEEES Annual Convention.
Policy set by the Atlantic Council years ago: make Russia a pariah state. Written about it many times. BS and more western propaganda. The West has aligned itself with jihadists across the globe, Chechnya included. Same as in Afghanistan, these terrorists were called “freedom fighters”. See John McCain in northern Syria with same cutthroats.
Absolutely outrageous! See her twitter account with followers/participants Anne Applebaum and former and now discredited Poland’s FM Radoslaw Sikorski.
Pitiful and so uninformed!
Posted earlier @BT – To the Stake .. Burn the Heretic
You think Fillon looks good? Other than no being into participating in a war with Russia, he looks like Bobby Jindal.
Not that Juppe sounds like a peach. More ethical than when he was banned from political office for a year?
If the trend we’ve been seeing of late continues through conservative run-off primary, the old face, Juppe, would be rejected. OTOH, he may get the majority of Sarkozy voters.
Speaking of which, nice to see that Sarkozy was trounced. Hope to see the same if Blair actually gets back in saddle.
Then it’s off to the elections in May. Le Pen, Fillon or Juppe, and Hollande (?). Can French voters choose “none of the above?”
Commonplace nowadays across western democracies … choice of the lesser evil.
Fillon surged due to his performance during the debates. I too am glad the “old school” Sarkozy (think Libya and Syria) won’t get a new chance. His votes will likely go to Fillon as he will become the candidate of the conservatives.
The only relief is that Fillon is in the best position to beat Marine LePen for the French Presidency, Juppe is too “moderate” for the voters on the right.
○ Syria timeline
You write:
I think you are a little off here, Oui. The real tendency is not “choice of the lesser evil,” it is choice of the new and (at least recently) untried in the…admittedly oft-times badly informed…hope that it will be better. Regular, walking-around people…not the elite, not the intellectuals, not the privileged, not the entitled, just the folks you see on the subway or bus, the daily commuter headed for his or her, going-nowhere job…are feeling the pinch of a failed (for them, anyway) neoliberal, multinational, globalist system. They have a vote and they have the numbers. They no longer believe the state-controlled mass media’s constant stream of bullshit because what is really happening is not working for them, and it hasn’t been for quite a while now. They no longer trust the promises of their institutions or mainstream politicians and they no longer trust the blandishments of their financial institutions to “Get ANOTHER credit Card!!! Bank at OUR bank!!! We’ll take care of you!!!”
Ands they are right not to trust them. It took them long enough!!!
It’s simple once you ignore the complexity…which is what most so-called “normal” people do. The mass media lie? Pay attention to the alt. right media. Maybe they’re better. The mass media harp on and on about how much better is HRC than Trump, about what a piece of shit Trump is on every level of human existence? Vote for Trump on the Ciceronian “Liars are not to be believed even when they’re telling the truth” principle. They don’t have to read Cicero to know this; it’s common fucking sense.
Not that “common sense” is necessarily right…it is often just another set of paving stones on the long and constant road to one new hell or another. So it goes.
This is happening all over the developed world. It’s Brexit. It’s Trump. It will quite possibly be Fillon. It will happen in large parts of Europe. You will see it happening in Asia, In Australia, in New Zealand, in Canada…in any and all somewhat “developed” countries where the vast middle is no longer having a good go of it.
Watch.
And it will fail eventually, this movement, just as has neoliberalism/neoconservativism…the present two sides of the Permanent Government coin.
Watch.
AG
it is choice of the new and (at least recently) untried in the…admittedly oft-times badly informed…hope that it will be better.
In our ’16 election, that force isn’t robust. If it were, Trump would also have won the popular and as counties/states continue to count the ballots, Hillary’s popular vote lead is growing. But down ballot the force doesn’t seem to exist at all. Very few members of Congress — the institution with a favorable rating below that of Trump — lost their seats.
You write:
“In our ’16 election, that force isn’t robust”
It was robust enough. Just enough to elect Trump. The generally badly informed electorate voted against the biggest target that represented the past…HRC. Their analysis goes no further into the complexities of the situation.
Cartoon-level, two-dimensional democracy as practiced in the U.S. since Hearst.
Nothing new there…
AG
Republicans are going to read the results as an endorsement for and shift in favor of their party. And they managed to do it with one of the most ridiculous presidential candidates ever.
It’s easier to read it that my than the competing hypothesis of “throw out the old faces” because few GOP congressional incumbents lost their re-election and the GOP made gains at the state level. The NH governor elect (one of the gubernatorial seats that flipped in an open seat) may be a newish face but with an old name. That’s encouragement for political dynasties which is the opposite of what is being claimed about the electorate from the GOP primaries and general election.
And the hype just keeps right on coming.
Like I was saying…
AG
P.S. Of course, hype is necessarily false. It just costs less than actually improving product.
So it goes…
It’s the money; it’s always about the money.
But this is some mighty lame crap. They’re saying they could ignore Palin’s sixty million voters for eight years, Mitt’s sixty-one million for four years, and now Trump’s sixty-two million requires their industry to do a major re-think. Hillary will still end up with at least 1.7 million more votes. Or maybe they’re freaking about the five million vote increase for “other.” Nah, “other” never plays a role in politics or advertising unless Democrats claim that’s why they lost, with the faulty assumption that X stole Democratic votes by being on the ballot.
The left have any shot at all, or is Hollande so unpopular that he renders the Socialists hopeless?
Looking at the polls, the only chance for anything but Republicans vs LePen in the second round is if the parties of the left unites before the first round. There were discussions about a wide primary of the left, but PS (Hollande’s party) has backed out in favour of running their own. Presumably because it would have been a hard fight and the PS candidate could have lost.
I guess they will go with “vote for us, or the Republicans will win” in the first round. Unlikely to help them, in particular since Hollande gave up his economic promises as soon as he was elected. But I guess they rather lose then risk backing a candidate to their left.
But I guess they rather lose then risk backing a candidate to their left.
Why does that sound so familiar?
Ahem…
Immediately after writing the above I went to check out Google News…to find out the latest centrist media line for this current news cycle. The first thing that caught my eye?
As I was saying…
AG
As the Dems attempt to rebrand, to become the new “new.”
And there is it is in a nutshell.
I repeat:
Rebranding in action.
Can she succeed with the dead weight of the Schumer/Feinstein old guard pulling against her?
We shall see, soon enough.
2018 will tell the tale.
Watch.
Later…
AG
So Fillon is a Thatcherite, and Hollande is dead to his party…I assume LePen is anti-immigrant but neutral to the social state???
Her economic policies are pretty good actually (the stated ones, anyway). She’s opposed to unbridled capitalism and says the state has to work to protect workers. If it weren’t for the risk of fascism Le Pen vs. Fillon would be a tough choice. Wreck society or wreck the economy?
I suspect she will get a lot of labor voters then. Might even win.
Saw that Merkel was running again.
Won’t hear a peep of objection for Merkel attempting to make it at least sixteen years straight out of US “centrists” that are quick to denounce head of governments that remain in office for more than two terms or more than twelve years.
Off-topic: Page Six — The Obamas are going bicoastal
Barbara Boxer also moved to Rancho Mirage a few years ago when her husband retired from his law firm. It’s also over a hundred miles away from Mitt’s new La Jolla digs which is a good thing.
I will give Michael S. Smith high marks for the WH redecorating in the past six years. Very classy and understated lush. Hope the Committee for the Preservation of the White House doesn’t have its hands full dealing with the Trumps passion for gilding and cheap looking tat.
Guess IL will become for the Obamas what AR became for the Clintons. A place to leave a presidential library and otherwise get out of there. OTOH, the Secret Service has decades of experience in protecting a former POTUS in Rancho Mirage; so, they’ll be safe there and members of the detail may not mind the vacation jaunts to Hawaii.
(With his latest re-election and now being 80 years old, wonder if John McCain will quit spending any time in AZ and spend more time with Cindy in CA.)
She at least is not a full blown neoliberal.
But we don’t know if that’s by inclination or the robustness of German social democratic laws and institutions. Nixon couldn’t tackle all that New Deal stuff either which is why some today assert that he was more liberal than subsequent presidents. The real answer is unknown and unknowable since Nixon wasn’t all that much interested in domestic policies and in his time he had to deal with a majority Democratic congress filled with DP New Dealers and moderate Republicans (a breed that has died out and mostly become neoliberalcon Democrats. If the Lincoln Chafee apple didn’t fall far from the tree, then some of the old moderate Republicans were far more liberal and progressive than the majority of Democrats currently in office.)
Not neoliberal, I think. All the hi-speed grid modernization and renewables are publically financed and OWNED. If those tendencies were there, think they would have shown up in that instance…
We won’t ever know. That’s why social democracy built around bedrock laws and institutions trump new and fashionable rhetoric (that at its core is deeply regressive) and the personalities spouting it. That was something that even many of the framers of the Constitution understood. FDR’s team had a full grasp of that proposition which is why at the base level it resisted attacks for so long.
How long have the Tories been assaulting the NHS? And even after all the damage done to it by Thatcher and Blair, a solid majority of the public still says, don’t take away my healthcare.
French Nationalists never have been. DeGaulle nationalized the auto industry IIRC and kept France out of NATO.
This was consistent with the behavior of some of the Christian Democratic Parties in Europe post war.
Not in Germany, but her economic policies for the eurozone are horrible and centralises power to Germany.
Not that anyone CDU would elect would be better.
Trump phenomenon, French style?
Precisely.
Trump phénomène, style français.
Bet on it.
Watch.
Have you seen the North African/Middle Eastern refugees/squatters on the heretofore pristine Parisian thoroughfares?
It makes one long for the squalor of pre-gentrification NYC.
If Washington DC or NYC looked like his, Trump would have won even bigger.
Bet on it.
AG
NYC didn’t look that bad during the garbage strike!
Not good for tourism. Neither was Carlie Hebdo, nor this.
Forget about the garbage strikes!!! i lived in areas in NYC during the late ’60s/’70s where burned, savaged cars just sat on the street for months. Where graffitti covered whole buildings. Where the Sanitation Dept. just essentially gave up street cleaning. Where homelessness and abandoned building squatting was a way of life. Where the South Bronx was quite literally burning.
And it didn’t look like this.
France gonna get Trumped next.
Watch.
ASG
I was on sabbatical in France five years ago when the Socialists held their own version of a primary and picked Hollande. People seemed hopeful. The provincial capital where I was living has a strong labor movement and used to be a Communist stronghold. Of course, get out into the small towns not far away and it’s a very different story.
Donald Trump shares a whole lot of values with Marine LePen.
My first visit to France and Paris was in August 1968, we camped in the Bois de Bologne. Amazing.
○ La révolte étudiante au quartier latin en mai 1968 – Video