Guest essay by Eric Worrall
President Macron, thought technically in the lead, is facing a nervous time attempting to build a coalition, to win a run off election against upstart right wing candidate Marine Le-Pen.
Macron uses climate change to attack Le Pen
The French president is attempting to attract left-wing voters ahead of the final round of the French election.
BY CLOTHILDE GOUJARD
April 16, 2022 7:21 pmIn a bid to woo left-wing voters for the final round of the French presidential election, Emmanuel Macron on Saturday slammed his far-right opponent Marine Le Pen as a “climate skeptic”and trumpeted his own plans to build a green economy.
Speaking in Marseille at his only large rally ahead of the April 24 vote, the liberal incumbent billed the election as a “civilizational choice” and vowed to turn France into a “great environmental nation.”
“The choice today is clear. The far-right is a climate-skeptic project, a project that wants to leave Europe’s climate ambitions, that wants to destroy windmills,” Macron told nearly 3,000 people.
Dedicating most of his speech to his environmental ambitions, Macron painted his opponent’s idea to dismantle wind farms and impose a moratorium on new wind and solar energy projects in France while building new nuclear power plants as out of touch and dangerous.
“Good luck and good use of taxpayers’ money,” he said.
…
Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/france-election-president-2022-macron-climate-change-attack-le-pen/
First I want to categorically state that French politics is as complicated as the French approach to romantic entanglements. Only the French truly understand French politics. So if I’ve gotten it wrong, apologies in advance.
The French operate a second round runoff system of Presidential Elections, where if a candidate does not win an outright victory, there is a second runoff election between the lead candidate and runner up. The two candidates in this case will be incumbent Emmanuel Macron and runner up Marine Le-Pen.
But Marine Le-Pen is shaping up to be a serious challenger to Emmanuel Macron.
Macron entered the The Élysée Palace as a revolutionary, but turned out to be an establishment bore, whose Presidency has been marred with Yellow Vest protests in response to unacceptable fuel tax hikes, and other serious missteps.
Macron’s attempt to attack Le-Pen’s climate credentials is risky, because he himself has badly disappointed climate activists – in 2021, a French Court ruled that Macron’s government was not doing enough to fulfil their climate pledges. And his backdown on the carbon taxes which sparked the Yellow Vest protests upset activists, even if they saved his Presidency from further strife.
And there is the curse of the second term. No French president has won a second term since Jacques Chirac, who left office in 2007.
Is Marine a climate skeptic? Who knows. She has been accused of being a climate denier, but her platform in 2017 included opposition to Shale Gas, and her references to climate policy have been ambiguous to say the least. Perhaps climate skepticism is a subject she doesn’t want to discuss, rather than a key position.
Still we might be in for a pleasant surprise. Above all, Le-Pen strikes me as a pragmatist. In the face of Russian gas shortages, in my opinion she will likely put French energy security ahead of other energy considerations.
The race is on for Emmanuel to appeal to the far left, whom he bitterly disappointed during his first term, and for Marine to appeal to the centre and right wing Éric Zemmour supporters, whose support largely grew from alienation of right wing voters due to Le-Pen’s moves towards centrism.
My Zemmour supporter French friend plans to hold his nose and vote Le-Pen. I suspect the majority of Zemmour supporters will support Le-Pen in the second round election, to avoid a second Macron term. They sent a message in the first round elections that they couldn’t be taken for granted. So the real battle in the second round is the centre and the far left.
Macron faces a real balancing act, to win enough of the centre to fend off Le-Pen, but also somehow convince the far Left to give him another chance.
Maybe I’m reading too much into this election – Le-Pen’s drive to centrism could make for a Presidential term as pointless as the Macron presidency.
But despite this I hope Le-Pen wins. France needs a dose of political pragmatism, after Macron’s reckless anti free trade posturing and egocentric mockery of the USA. In addition, the delicious outlier possibility that under Le-Pen, France itself could reject the Paris Agreement, would make for a very entertaining WUWT essay if it happens, and would cause a big shakeup of the globalist green world order.
Update (EW): h/t Hans Erren – Fixed a typo.
“ Will the Next French President Renounce the Paris Agreement?”
Let’s hope
Maybe. If it’s LePen it’ll still be difficult to know – she’s quite hard to read on several issues; look at how Macron was viewed in his initial campaign against the reality of when he was elected.
Both are difficult to read,
That said: the actual result (as policies enacted) of an European election is as unpredictable as if the winning candidate was chosen by rolling dice…
Yes. Some in the Anglosphere long ago concluded that many Continental attitudes to National and EU edicts/regulations is that they are merely pieces of advice to be considered at leisure, not laws to be obeyed.
Yes some Macron’s minister said that Le Pen was weak on security – security being, of course, the so called “far right” mental horizon. That obviously angered many on the left.
Another minister made a (useless, mostly phony) attack on Islamo-leftism in academia, angering much of Islamophilic left in the process.
I think that process is called in France “la triangulation” (not so sure about that political science term though).
Marine Le Pen’s issue is that her natural tendency is to do belly dancing for Marxists who hate her anyway. It’s going nowhere!
But despite this I hope Le-Pen wins.
My impression from the French people I talk to (I spend lot of time in the South where she has strong support) is that she might get bigger proportion of vote than the last time, but she is unlikely to win. She is very popular among her supporters but not widely enough to be elected for the highest executive office in France.
I have seen her on french TV. She is a smart cookie. I think you may well be surprised. Everyone assumes their own bubble represents everyone else, so it is really hard to gauge popular support. In the end I thiunk she may simply get the ‘i’m fed up with the current lot’ vote. And that really IS a majority.
Le Pen came out in support of the yellow vests at the time. Her father was the former leader of the party and she’s stepped to a centrist position. She certainly appeals to nationalists and also has a lock on common sense. Ordinarily, she’d be a shoo-in but for the machinations of EU status quo political prostitutes who lack principles (they’d make a deal with the devil to stay in power and then tell the devil to take a hike).
Yes she has a good connection with “la France périphérique” (think “flyover country” in the US).
It isn’t sufficient.
Marine Le Pen is a lawyer, she is pretty clueless on economics and finance and money as most people on the French “far right”.
(These are the people who want no part in the EU because sovereign France would be able to make up magical money, so they represent the very opposite of US don’t tread on me types.)
She did manage to humiliate Macron (banker) on these subjects five years ago, but it’s a taboo in France and almost 0.0% French citizens will tell you that fact (no even her own supported think she dominated Macron five years ago, probably because they take blue pills not red pills).
The wild card is the anti-Macron vote.
Her ‘grey’ past financial arrangements may come under scrutiny.
You mean the Russian loan?
The deal to split and sell Alstom, notably the turbines part to GE, and who enriched themselves doing analysis on that, and who gave Macron campaign money five years ago, may come under scrutiny.
The deal to the transport part of Alstom, earning money for the husband of conservative politician, may come under scrutiny.
Lots of stuff “may come under scrutiny”.
(Unlike many on the right, I’m not furious about the Alstom-GE turbine deal – I just don’t understand enough about the deal.)
Exactly. The result will be decided by the balance between the anti-Macron and the anti-Le Pen: those that don’t like one but think that the other is even worse.
By historical chance her party was founded by n@zis; it’s an accident of history though, it could have been founded by French “résistants” – authentic antin@zis (not phony “antifas”).
And the party president, Jean-Marie Le Pen, volunteered to fight a war for Israel (to the point he allegedly wanted to take Israeli citizenship to go on fighting) in the Suez crisis. So much for his antisemitism.
And his party has relation with Islamists and is close with E&R (égalité & réconciliation, a very nauseating web of influence, think 911 truthers of the most anti-Semitic kind)
Jean-Marie Le Pen is extremely unreadable!
^ This
LePen is a polarizing candidate who has a lot of support, maybe even more than Macron, but is nobody’s second choice. That’s what happened to her in the last election. She did really well in the first round, but picked up almost no additional votes in the second round and got trounced.
LePen is a France First candidate, Macron is an EU First candidate
The French people are fed up with Climate, the EU, Brussels and the US/UK-led-NATO
The cost of implementing the Climate agenda will increase by at least 30 to 40%, due to due to increased inflation rates, increased interest rates, and increased materials prices.
The various costs of making wind turbines have gone up, especially in Europe, due to increases in energy, materials, and transport prices
The cost of financing has increased, i.e., higher interest rates, because of the consumer price index, CPI, increasing at 8.5%/y, and the producer price index, PPI, increasing at 11.5%/y
Owners typically put up 50% of the turnkey capital cost of a wind, solar, or battery project, the rest is financed.
Owners typically make 9%/y on their investment, when bank interest rates are low, say 3.5%/y.
Owners may want to make a higher %/y, when bank interest rates are high.
All this translates in Owners having to sell their wind electricity at much higher prices, i.e., wind suddenly is not competitive with existing low-cost, domestic coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydro.
The same is happening due to re-pricing of:
1) Solar electricity
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/cost-shifting-is-the-name-of-the-game-regarding-wind-and-solar
2) Grid-scale battery system services
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
3) EVs, and EV chargers, and EV charging
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/poor-economics-of-electric-vehicles-in-new-england
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/electric-bus-systems-likely-not-cost-effective-in-vermont-at
All that will make it much more expensive to reduce CO2 to “save the world from climate change” (if that were actually possible).
However, reducing fossil CO2 reduces biomass growth (which absorbs CO2)
The growing of crops for food has already been reduced, due to a shortage of fertilizer and phosphate from Belarus and Russia; their prices have become stratospheric. A world recession, or worse, may be in the offing.
Remember, all this is due to the US relentlessly pushing to expand NATO infrastructures and personnel beyond East Germany, which it had promised not to do in 1990. The USSR and the Warsaw Pact collapsed in 1991. NATO had become superfluous.
After the US-instigated color revolution in 2014, the US turned impoverished, corrupt, oligarchic Ukraine into a NATO-armed battering ram to reduce the security of Russia. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-plot-is-thickening-with-germany-and-france-no-longer-in
US foreign policy’s been internationalist for quite a while & as you said, we should’ve
let the Europeans fend for themselves after The Evil Empire fell. Every Ukrainian
knew that Russia would eventually get aggressive & their only real defense was to
keep their nukes, even though the US, the UK & Russia guaranteed their safety.
safety. Even China pledged their security in 2013. That was a YUGE mistake on their
part!
Vlad used the NATO expansion eastward as a lame excuse to attack westward
which was always his plan- the restoration of The Evil Empire. If the West had
wanted to attack eastward, we’d have already done that in the 1990s. Joining
NATO was just another way for nations to be out of the reach of Vlad the Vulture’s
attacks.
Yunukovych was in Vlad’s pocket & it was a good for Ukraine for him to be gone.
Why would Ukrainians want someone pro-Russian- their greatest threat? Claims
of it being a CIA operation doesn’t add up- more than likely just more Russian
propaganda. If the CIA was involved, the US shouldn’t have meddled in Europe.
Any plans to use the situation to further a global cabal is separate from
Vlad’s evil actions. Tying them together just gives Vlad cover!
After the revolution, Vlad took Crimea with the help of “little green men”. Invading
revealed Vlad to be the gangster he is- Russia’s just his turf. That a gangster’s
afraid, they should be! 😮
According to Mrs. Nuland, assistant US Secretary of State, born in Ukraine, the U.S. spent $5 billion from 1991 to 2014 to get Ukraine under US control. See my article.
Then, the US told Ukraine not to implement the Minsk Agreements, while AZOV/NAZI lovelies were committing genocide in the Ukraine Dombas Region, killing 13,000 people from 2014 to 2022.
Dozens of CIA and FBI agents, who specialize in color revolutions, were involved. That $5 billion worked magic in Ukraine, the most impoverished, corrupt state in Europe.
At present, Russia has captured hundreds of soldiers of NATO countries, who the Media said were not in Ukraine, and also captured hundreds of mercenaries, who do not have the protections of regular POWs
Stay tuned
“shortage of fertilizer and phosphate from Belarus and Russia; their prices have become stratospheric.”
Generally correct about prices, but it’s mainly potash (K) from Belarus and you left out the all important nitrogen fertilizers (N) which are manufactured using natural gas! Potash and phosphates are mined, they are abundant but fuel costs for mining and shipping are affected. The biggee is N.
Gary,
Thank you for the info.
I will revise my article.
Nat gas price in Europe was stratospheric even before the conflict so…
No, Steve: what is happening now, and has happened 5 years ago was not that she is “nobody’s second choice”: the important fact is that for a majority of voters she is the FIRST choice for refusal.
If you trust Marine Le Pen, you think she did extremely poorly five years ago in the debate, but that’s a LIE.
Nobody in her party wanted to tell the truth five years ago, so they blue pilled themselves “admitting” she did horribly in the debate against Macron hence lost bigly.
None of that has any basis in reality (polls are not reality, they are made up, it isn’t seriously deniable in France, although few people will admit that).
In fact Le Pen did honorably in the debate five years ago and Macron was pathetic, but
Just because people admit their failings doesn’t mean they did fail when and how they say they did.
People have motives to accuse themselves of stuff they did not do, esp. when they have other stuff that they did do and that is more serious.
This time round we have the new factors of the sudden energy crisis in Europe – and the sudden safety crisis because of Ukraine.
This makes it quite unpredictable who will win. Here’s to hope!!
In the second turn of their elections, the French usually vote “against”, not “for”, a candidate. They try to choose the “lesser evil”, or throw a “useful vote”: not the vote they would wish.
This is common also in other countries: people most often will vote a candidate they don’t like than doing the sensible thing, abstaining, i.e., signalling that NONE of the candidates fits what they think is good for the country.
The problem is that Marine Le Pen (RN = Rassemblement National, formerly FN = Front National) shits on those most likely to “choisir de reporter” their vote on her, the “patriosphère” and the (many) former Rassemblement National members.
(“Reporter son vote” means to vote for another candidate that the second turn of a two turns election.)
The Le Pen plan was to allow Macron to disappoint for a term and win next time round. I don’t know if Covid has derailed that but i hope not and look forward to lots of wailing from the Bill Gates Guardian and the BBC at a Le Pen victory.
Mme Le Pen is an intelligent and astute woman. She will not confuse in her own mind what needs to be done for France, and what is poltically acceptable.
Right now, the game is get elected. Once elected, well then, that is a different matter…
My impression of France is that it likes its Big State, just not having to pay for it, and not Macron’s EU big state.
I suspect that oince elected there will be an un-published push to upgrade Frances nuclear fleet, some ‘wet’ initiatives with windmills which will simply be under subsidised. And a lot of rhetoric about te EU. Like Trump. I think she realises the value of having the argument in one place while the action takes place in quite another..
Good comments, Leo. If I were a pragmatic French voter I would vote for Le Pen based on building more nuclear power plants. France also needs to deal with the uncontrolled flood of northern Africa immigrants, and Le Pen is a much preferred candidate on that issue.
“The race is on for Emmanuel to appeal to the far left, whom he bitterly disappointed during his first term, and for Marine to appeal to the centre and right wing Éric Zemmour supporters, whose support largely grew from alienation of right wing voters due to Le-Pen’s moves towards centrism.”
While the French have a more diverse selection of parties, they fit the standard model of politicians
everywhere which you stated as such: “the game is get elected.” This includes using the old “I was
for it before I was against it” & smearing the opposition for your own unpopular decisions- LGB &
the MSM have already “informed” all Yanks it was those evil, nasty, racist “waskily Wepublicans”
that were for defunding the police!
Old Man Winter: “LGB & the MSM have already “informed” all Yanks it was those evil, nasty, racist “waskily Wepublicans” that were for defunding the police!”
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Tactics like that always seem to work, but those living on hourly wages have been smacked out of their complacency by prices at the gas pump and in the grocery checkout lines. Brandon’s poll numbers** suggest that more people in the U.S. are paying attention and not buying the YSM narrative.
=> I’m not sure what the mood in France is right now because I don’t know how hard the French are getting hit in their wallets. In general, people vote their pocketbook, no matter how much they go on about other issues. If the French are being squeezed as much as we are here in the U.S., that would seem to favor Le Pen.
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**Remember, polls are used to shape opinion, not to reflect opinion. Brandon’s numbers are probably even a little lower than the record lows recently reported.
As we get closer to the midterms, those poll numbers will slowly, magically rise to support a narrative that “Joe is a fighter and a winner.” People like a fighter and a winner and that narrative should help his party in the midterms.
Watch the polls. That’s what is going on. But the pain at the pump is getting really sharp and quite a few people have caught onto the fact that inflation that was hitting gas and food was bad and getting worse well before Putin invaded Ukraine. Blaming Trump doesn’t seem to be working out so hot, either.
We shall see.
Overall, I think it’s actually more complex than that. Our media overlords here in the states are trying to throw anything they can at the wall and see what sticks. So Republicans are now the “defund the police”, the economy is getting better not worse, Putin caused inflation, etc. I think you are basically correct, about the intent to use polling to :”prove” that Joe is a fighter and winner, but I suspect they are operating in crisis mode because as you also noted that “true” poll numbers a likely a fair bit lower than their released data suggests. So I imagine that if they don’t get indications of support for Biden going up, we’ll likely see increasing outlandish claims about how everything that’s gone wrong in Biden’s Presidency isn’t his or the Democrats in Congress fault. And truthfully, I don’t think it’s clear which way the wind will blow on this… I’d like to believe Americans are intelligent enough to at least not believe their lies… but I’m not sure I do.
All this fuss about Frexit is just that. A fuss.
I can confirm that Brexit remains an ‘idea’, but the reality is we shadow the EU’s every move…
“After several years in the pipeline, Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA) technology is set to become mandatory on all new cars in the UK from July of this year.
The rules, which were developed by the European Union, are expected to be adopted by the UK despite it having left the EU.”
https://www.startrescue.co.uk/breakdown-cover/motoring-advice/safety-and-security/mandatory-speed-limiters-to-be-on-all-uk-cars-from-2022
It’s much like the Hotel California; you can check out any time you like…
But you do, at least, have a choice since Brexit. EU still controls through the threat of economics but given time the Brits can build up stronger economic ties outside the EU reducing the EU’s grip.
Typo in the fist paragraph: macro, probably a wrong autocorrect.
Thanks Hans 🙂
Yeah, it still shows wrong on FaceBook where I couldn’t resist noting
I miss VAX MACRO… Hell, I miss the VAX and VMS.
Wonderful to see the anti-wind movement on center stage!
I refer to it as the break wind movement
She likes Putin, though, who is a monster, so that’s a problem.
She is not what people think of when they say right-wing. She’s a Big State Nationalist.
Of course in the EU the alternative is a Big State Supranationalist so she is outside of the mainstream of French debate.
But that does not mean she’s anything like the US Republican party. Any more than Boris is in the UK.
https://giphy.com/clips/southpark-season-8-south-park-episode-5KBophOBgGeSus0hlO
Having said that, Macron has been cosying up to Putin extremely blatantly as well. I don’t see that particular issue as being a point of division between the 2 candidates.
Macron, like Zelensky, tried valiantly to pioneer a third way. But also like Zelensky, and unlike paid for Le Pen, since the war began he has gone full anti Lubner and has grown a spine.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/09/macron-cant-quit-putin-french-election-00023781
https://giphy.com/embed/l2SqfE6JkPprTpYVW<p><a href=”https://giphy.com/gifs/snl-saturday-night-live-1970s-l2SqfE6JkPprTpYVW”>via GIPHY</a></p>
Whilst promoting a completely ‘business as usual’ approach to Putin. His actions, as well as those of France under his leadership, do not appear to support his rhetoric – the man really is 2 faced.
All could be said of Zelensky. Better to stay wrong, like Le Pen?
I would rather limit the discussion to the French elections whilst Russian troops are on Ukraine soil. My views on Zelensky were raised on previous topics before the invasion and no doubt I’ll return to that after the situation has been resolved (if it ever really is). Until then, no comment on Zelensky.
What, you don’t think the ‘perfect’ should be the enemy of the good enough for now?
Not sure what you’re getting at here – are you suggesting a choice between, say, gonorrhea and herpes?
Don’t believe everything you read in Western Media about Putin. (actually about anything).
https://cf2r.org/documentation/la-situation-militaire-en-ukraine/
The text is available in English too, click on the French flag
Great point about not believing anything put out by the MSM. You never know what they’re
up to.
As for Vlad, he’s an evil dictator whose evil plan was always the rebuilding the Evil Empire.
Trump took out his Syrian mercenaries so he had to wait for LGB before acting on his plan.
Depending on how things go, he may want to add other territory that was once behind the
Iron Curtain. The object of power is more power!!! 😮 😉
What Bob Daye said!
Anymore if I see it with my own eyes, MAYBE I believe it.
👍 👍 👍
And you certainly don’t want to believe what you read in Russian media.
Who was it that said something like: If you don’t read a newspaper you are uninformed and if you do read a newspaper you are misinformed.
That’s usually attributed to Mr. Sammuel Clemens; however, the attribution is likely to be incorrect.
There is a common saying that goes ‘Don’t believe anything you read or hear, and only half of what you see’. I think it’s at least something to ponder….
Some people initially supported Hitler. Joseph P. Kennedy might be an example, but he turned around and vigorously campaigned for giving aid to the British.
We should start calling the leader of Russia Vlad the Impaler. Anyone who supports him now is beyond the pale. Le Pen should renounce him immediately and loudly. She can be forgiven for making a mistake. She should not be forgiven for sticking with it.
I agree, but the fact that she hasn’t done so yet doesn’t bode well.
Maybe, maybe not. She has yet to come out and renounce Putin, but she has condemned the Russian invasion, backtracked on her pro-Putin links and supported measures to help Ukraine – that might just be seen to be enough by the French.
Hitler fooled a lot of people in his early years, he revived the German economy, which a lot of people thought was a great thing. Everyone knew he was racist, but that wasn’t remarkable in the early 1930s.
That is why the film reels of the concentration camps were shown world wide after the war, there were still Westerners who believed in Eugenics until it became socially untenable, and even then there were a handful of holdouts.
https://www.michaelcrichton.com/why-politicized-science-is-dangerous/
Putin is just the same, if he had sat on his butt and given Russia stability and prosperity, he would have been remembered as the founder of modern Russia. Nobody not directly affected by his alleged criminal acts would have cared about his alleged links to corruption and crime. But now he’s ruined all that by starting a war of conquest.
The Finns have seen and lived the movie. When the Russians invaded Finland prior to WW2, they got no help from the west, or anyone, for that matter. But like the Ukrainians are doing now, they fought like hell and killed thousands of Russians. By the end of the war, many a Finns rifle had been refitted with another barrel, or more, and was still devoid of rifling – worn out from shooting Russians. Although the Finns population was less than 5 million, the tens of millions of Russians could not destroy them. At the end of the day, Russia got Karelia, as they will get eastern Ukraine. But, at great cost.
I’ve seen lots of military people speculating that the Ukraine will get Crimea back.
If Putin is very lucky, he will end up living in luxurious exile in the middle of the Gobi desert.
“ Will the Next French President Renounce the Paris Agreement? ”
Well, Micron will eventually promise to do it if he feels in danger of losing the election, but after being elected he will no deliver. Le Pen will eventually promise if she feels that it will bring her some decisive votes, and after being elected she eventually will deliver.
Mark all my words and conditionals, as Eric said “French politics is as complicated as the French approach to romantic entanglements”. But I disagre when he states that “Only the French truly understand French politics”: in my opinion, not even French truly understand it.
the French understand the political system, but not the decisions 😀
I cant’t believe they are still friends of a Sun King as Macron pretend to be.
Ask the Yellow Vests 😀
Just like in the climate discussion so too in politics much confusion is caused by the way language is used. I wonder if it would not be better to limit or not use terms like left, right and center but specific policy vs policy. Then it would be clearer if a candidate has a policy on a particular issue, if it is feasible and affordable, if it is confusing and contradictory, if it is ideological or pragmatic, principled or self-serving. Voters should demand a brief and clear manifesto from each political candidate and hold them to this if elected.
Politicians are no longer statesmen as they’ve become salesman for whom language is used to
make the sale! They essentially look out for #1 Regardless of what the rules are, there will always
be ways to weasel their way around them.
I’d vote for a guillotine if it were possible.
Scissor
I find it ironic that Robespierre one of the leaders of the French Revolution and a lawyer who promoted the guillotine was given a taste of his own medicine.
If you qualify and believe the punishment should fit the crime, I would wholeheartedly agree. I find it unjust, indeed a great injustice when someone is brutally murdered but the remaining family are punished by having to contribute for say thirty years towards the incarceration of the murderer. Let those who object to the death penalty pay the prison costs.
However, this goes much further than murder. Many climate activists are involved with what is simply sabotage and should receive a punishment commensurate to those found guilty of sabotage in a war situation. They should receive a strict punishment.
From an energy viewpoint, France & Norway may be the two EU nations that will suffer the least
under any of Vlad’s manipulations and/or retributions. Macron has always looked out for Macron
first, then France, & has the cunning & guile to milk every situation for what he can get using any
means possible. He’s just another wily, manipulative politician! 😮
“Macron painted his opponent’s idea to dismantle wind farms and impose a moratorium on new wind and solar energy projects in France while building new nuclear power plants as out of touch and dangerous.”
Even though it’s just a ploy to isolate Le Pen, it does state the choice of the West: do we continue to
jump off the cliff like lemmings or do we stop the suicide & stick with energy that works?
Old Man Winter—
Norway is not an EU country (associated with EEA though)
Agree with your analysis though.
Eric, wee typo…
“President Macron,
thought(though) technically in the lead, is facing a nervous time attempting to build a coalition, to win a run off election against upstart right wing candidate Marine Le-Pen.Hopefully Anthony lets this post. Sigh…
Le Pen is only “right wing” by French standards ie not at all. Just like the silly idea the Communists have that Hitler was ‘right wing’….
So right!
Let Pen is ‘extreme’ right wing according to Cdn msm.
The Canadian MSM is extreme left wing according to me
Le Pen is:
Not even the French “far right” has a project to
(*) even twice elected, PCF (that’s French communists) supported, socialist former Président François Mitterand was pro borders:
“Quiconque vient contre la loi, c’est-à-dire clandestinement sans avoir reçu les autorisations nécessaires, le contrat de travail d’une part et surtout le permis de séjour, ne peut se voir accueilli, quelque désir que nous puissions en avoir car nous devons veiller à l’équilibre général du pays.” (June 1st, 1989)
=>
Anybody who comes against the law, that is in clandestine fashion, without needed authorizations, a work contract and especially a residence permit, can’t be accommodated (…).
I’m sure these words written by anyone considered “far right” could nowadays give rise to a fine for “speech promoting discrimination” (discrimination against the lawless, but still).
That is not an extrapolation. We have witnessed such judicial decisions recently, where even criticism of illegal immigration is forbidden hate speech.
You got me. But I let this one stand, I though it was close enough to right as is ;-).
LOL.Great post as always!
No matter how bad their choices are, or how terrible their choice may end up being, the French cannot hold a candle to how bad the current U.S. administration is.
I hope they pick someone with at least some common sense. At least they won’t be senile. The French are already in a much better energy situation than the rest of Europe. They don’t seem to have a solid wave of unelected greenzillas working quietly behind the scenes to destroy their prosperity and energy security.
I argue against hitching your wagon to individuals, rather you should stay as true to your ideology as you can. People will almost certainly disappoint you but that is okay. You should never expect or wish for everyone to think and act exactly like you, that is dangerous. Knowing nothing about French politics I would vote for Le Pen because I know Macron is not close to my ideology and hope his opponent will be.
…it dosen’t seem like she has been able to mobilize enough voter support in the western parts of France the past 5 years. But it will be closer than the last time.
“The choice today is clear. The far-right is a climate-skeptic project, a project that wants to leave Europe’s climate ambitions, that wants to destroy windmills,”
Oui! Nous allons avec Marine!
“Macron painted his opponent’s idea to dismantle wind farms and impose a moratorium on new wind and solar energy projects in France while building new nuclear power plants as out of touch and dangerous.
“Good luck and good use of taxpayers’ money,” he said.”
That was a great endorsement of Le Pen in my book.
I would exchange her with Slo Joe in a heartbeat.
The hit job has just been attempted EU and press accusing her party of misappropriating 630 thousand euro
Macron’s statement that he was going to “bother” as much as possible people who refused to get vaccinated is another issue that Le Pen would be very clever to bring up during the Presidential Debate (Wednesday, 21:00 Central European Time). Macron also had a clear position to promote modular nuclear reactors (which is by the way, the only thing I would approve in his favor). If he tries to deny that in order to seduce the left-greeners, he will be demasked. Le Pen has a consistent position similar to Trump’s: France first. She also has positions on things that are much closer to the citizen’s needs (cost of living, inflation etc..) while Macron is more concerned about globalist issues. And that could very well bring her over the finish line.
Macron soon stopped the Anti US BS when Russia invaded the Ukraine! He sucked up to NATO like a baby pig to a sow!
I do believe that even if she doesn’t win but comes close … That will be a ‘warning shot across the bow’.
Macron or ‘black face’ (Canada) are being seen for what they are and as people get their ‘new green deal’ fuel bills then Trump kicks in.
Here in England we have this …
“Only the French truly understand French politics.”
Actually, I’m not sure that they do, either.
In any case, it matters not. In the unlikely event of Le Pen winning, we would probably then discover that there is a little-known EU treaty specifying that anyone called Le Pen is forbidden from winning elections in France because they are simply “too far right” to be legal.
Le Pen’s plan for electric production is simple: go back to the sound approach, communists supported, conservative Presidents (Charles de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing) promoted, engineering based strategy of priority on nukes + hydro and the rest on whatever works.
Meaning no more subsidies for failed renewable. Zero. Nada.
So I’m all in for Le Pen on that one. Not on everything she says, but she got that one right.
100%.