As expected, Francois Fillon will be the conservative candidate in next year’s French presidential election. His rival Alain Juppe Conceded Defeat.
With a majority of polling stations counted, Fillon has about 67% of the vote.
Francois Fillon won France’s first-ever conservative presidential primary Sunday after promising drastic free-market reforms and a crackdown on immigration and Islamic extremism, beating a more moderate rival who had warned of encroaching populism.
Fillon campaigned on promises of slashing public spending, capping immigration, support for traditional family values and friendlier ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Fillon enjoyed a surprise surge in popularity in recent weeks over longtime front-runner Juppe, who also previously served as the country’s prime minister.
In a sober victory speech, Fillon promised to defend “French values” and said France needs “a complete change of software.”
Fillon, a conservative Catholic who opposed France’s law legalizing same-sex marriages, said he plans to reduce immigration to France “to a minimum” — positioning himself firmly to Juppe’s right.
Fillon wants to drop sanctions against Russia over its aggressive actions in Ukraine and partner with Russia in the fight against Islamic State extremists. Fillon insists “Russia poses no threat” to the West, while Juppe wants France to continue putting pressure on Putin on various fronts.
They both pledged to cut public spending, reduce the number of civil servants, raise the retirement age from 62 to 65, end the 35-hour work week and cut business taxes.
All French citizens over 18 — whether they are members of the Republicans party or not — were eligible to vote in the primary, if they paid 2 euros in fees and signed a pledge stating they “share the republican values of the right and the center.”
Will Hollande Run?
The socialists still have their primary coming up. Hollande has not decided if he will run. The announced candidates are former economic minister Arnaud Montebourg, Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, and Benoît Hamon. Incumbent prime minister Manuel Valls may also throw his hat into the ring.
French Presidential Election Roundup
Emmanuel Macron, who recently resigned as Hollande’s Minister of Economy will represent a new part he started “En Marche!”.
There are other minor parties including the Greens, Democratic movement, and Left Party (Parti de Gauche), none of which has a chance, but all will get on the ballot for Round One of the election.
Assuming no candidate gets 50% of the vote in round one of the election, the top two candidates will square off.
At the moment that would appear to be le Pen and Fillon.
Betting Odds
Heading into this runoff there was a Fillon-Le Pen bet one could have made that was a guaranteed winner, presuming of course that would be the final match-up. I made that bet on Wednesday, after Fillon was the round one leader in the primary.
On Wednesday, the betting odds on Bovada looked like this.
I booked the above bet. It is largely a symbolic bet because the largest bet Bovada would accept on any candidate was a measly $37.50.
My $50 total bet will return $51.43 if Fillon wins and $60.00 if Le Pen wins.
One could have gotten very nice odds on Fillon before round one in the primaries.
There is a chance some other candidate than le Pen squares off against the winner of the Republican primary but that seems unlikely at the moment.
Benefit to Le Pen?
Fillon is a strong free market advocate who seeks to shrink government. Fillon also wants better relations with Russia. Le Pen is anti-immigration, anti-EU, and anti-euro.
Juppe claimed that he had a better chance against le Pen than Fillon. Voters either discarded that notion or simply did not care.
Purge Continues
Socialists did turn out huge to vote for Fillon in round 1 of the primary. They wanted to bump off Nicolas Sarkozy and they did.
In French elections one can vote in any primary by paying a fee and pledging to hold the party’s values. In regards to platform vales, it’s safe to say many voters lied.
Regardless, the purge of establishment candidates continues.
EU nannycrats will be rooting for Fillon, but they lose something either way. Both Le Pen and Fillon seek better relations with Russia.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
2017 is forming up to be quite an interesting year…..
If Fillon wins France will become more competitive.
New German President is pro-Russia.
German industrialists are pro-Russia.
France will be pro-Russia.
EU will have to change stance to Russia unless a strong non-pro Russia German leader wins their election.
Eastern Europeans and Dutch unlikely to be happy. They can swivel. France + Germany will always have their way.
How did it come to the point that we label a politician pro-Russia or anti-Russia? How about standing up for his/her own country, when it comes to foreign influences wherever they might come from? The same with immigration.
Hey, lets ask the question that no one seems to ask here. How is Russia, a communist country (last I checked) and betrayer of human rights, a beacon for you people….are you guys really that nuts or just uneducated? Please spam me some answers so I can see how idiotic you guys are.
Hey, lets ask the question that no one seems to ask here. How is Russia, a communist country (last I checked) and betrayer of human rights, a beacon for you people….are you guys really that nuts or just uneducated? Please spam me some answers so I can see how idiotic you guys are.
It appears you can neither read nor think. No one held Russia up as a beacon of freedom. It is a strawman by fools like you. Instead we would rather talk with Russia than have world war 3 fighting them. Please spam us more answers so we can see more preposterous strawman positions for us to laugh at and mock.
Thank you for the slapdown of the Neocon, Mish!
Verhofstadt stated in EU parliament they see Putin and Erdogan as autocratic and looking to the demise of the EU. He’ll have to change tune.
It appears Juppe was the pro-Islam candidate.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9363/france-collapse/
Juppe was in the mold of every previous president of France, an appeaser of muslims and especially muslim extremists.
.
When muslims themselves believe in large groups (not all but around half) that they are conquering Europe by moving to Europe and making many babies and cashing welfare maybe politicians should WAKE UP and do something about it like WESTERNIZE european muslims and fight radicalization instead of politically correct gobbledygook and STOP family re-unification as a way to welfare completely.
.
Also previously many western european countries have given PERMANENT residence permits although international treaties demand TEMPORARY protection even in cases where there has been actual persecution.
Also the lax standards in Asylum processing propagated by EU through inane, naive and stupid EU-directives and totally insane EASO (Europen Asylum Support Office) modules to make decisions based on and EASO training to make those decisions all originally from the country with the craziest of the crazy immigration and asylum policies for over 20 years namely Sweden have made getting asylum in EU based on lies and fairytales and quick processing times (before the 2015 rush of millions) laughably easy so that asylum seekers who have got asylum are posting videos on facebook showing how they got it and telling other asylum seekers what to tell the incompetent bureaucrats.
This is compounded by the fact that all immigration agencies in Europe have very large numbers of self-selected leftists and greens with their naive ideas working as these bureaucrats.
.
EU thinking:
Let’s make the loosest, lax and stupidest asylum processing system from Sweden the system through all EU countries…
->EASO was born.
Meanwhile……..EU and status quo beginning to react in self preservation mode.
Fillon will be next President, Junker has declared Le Pen won’t win!
EU preparing to rapidly isolate migrant route in case Erdogan opens the gates, wire or wall?
Germany looking to deport 100K but another thought is deportation of 500K to Egypt whilst German left looking to prevent it. Yes, possibly 500K. Egypt to be used for the purpose. How would you feel if invited to Germany by the Gov but then shipped out to a country you didn’t come from that offers none of the advantages you had moved for?
Simple message – redistributing migrants in EU is not working, so when Erdogan opens the gates, go anywhere but Germany, or you will be sold to Sisi. In fact you can leave Germany now and flood other European countries if Cairo is not to your taste.
EVERYBODY coming to Europe should be shipped straight back to Turkey, Tunisia or Egypt since all three are SAFE and peaceful countries and they could help iraqis return to Iraq and Somalians return to Somalia and Eritreans return to Eritrea and Afganistanis return to Afganistan and Syrians can live in Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon in peaceful refugee camps until ISIS and other extremeists have been stopped in Syria.
.
The country which takes back these welfare seeking “refugees” and sends them back to their home countries will be loved by all europeans.
Will it be Egypt or Tunisia or both?
I don’t disagree, but I have the feeling that it is just another cover story that is designed to make people think that migrants are being dealt with, when in reality few will be returned. People are easily duped into believing, and the authorities will have the excuse that they are working to best intent to satisfy those who reject the wave of migration. Time will tell, in the meantime just more of the same.
So in other words, the U.S. media will now be relentlessly pushing for the election of a guy whose stated positions are about 90% in agreement withTrump’s. The hypocrisy of the elites knows no bounds.
Fillon came from nowhere with his positions.
Is he just a new flavor of establishment?
Bernie-flavor didn’t work in USA so maybe establishment is testing some slightly Trumpian flavors in France in order to stop Le Pen?
.
After winning Fillon would 90% surely pull a Sarkozy and get nothing done despite tough talk.
.
Sarkozy forgot his base when becoming president of France and all Sarkozys tough talk regarding immigration was proved to be just election talk to get votes.
.
Hopefully Trump will build a MASSIVE wall (and no Ryanian just a fence sh*t and no Ryans deputies idiotic “let’s use drones and no need for even a fence” stupidity) and deport immediately 2 million criminals and gang members and then make e-verify mandatory with penalties for employers who break e-verify rules and restrict EBT, Section 8 and welfare and tax credits to american citizens and legal immigrants so tens of millions will self-deport because no chance to get employment and no chance to get free money.
.
If Trump betrays his base and does not keep his promises his presidency will be nothing but pain and he will end up a failed one term president because if Trump does not have the people he has NOTHING because CNN, NYTimes, WaPo, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC and rest of the media will treat Trump like crap no matter what he does
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/SMALL_jill-stein-hillary-recount.jpg
The seven million bucks likely came from The Clinton Foundation. Nobody else with that kind of coin is a Stein supporter.
We must remember, as James Carville scolded us, “children are going to die” if The Clinton Foundation cannot continue in its mission.
Heaven help us all.
Clinton Foundation and/or George Soros.
Jill now has as much integrity as Bernie in my book
Bernie arguably had the most integrity in the bunch. He’s simply a socialist fool. But he actually believes most of what he says.
I don’t buy it.
Bernie barely put up a fight for the first half of the dem primary thus allowing Hillary to gain an insurmountable lead – then he started talking tough. By that time it was too late.
Bernie’s campaign strategy had every appearance of a deliberate place as opposed to a win.
IMO that does not = integrity.
I think he played his supporters for fools.
You give these clowns too much credit. Nobody, including Bernie, expected Bernie to have a chance, until the sheer magnitude of Hillary mistrust, even among Democrats, became obvious. Well into the primary campaign. Stein may have been cynically trying to ride the coattails of his way-closer-than-anyone-expected almost-upset. But Bernie himself never gave any indication that he was anything but earnest (as politicians go, at least). He simply believes the whole nominal-democracy-absolves-all-sin pap he is preaching to a crowd of mostly well indoctrinated, mostly immature children.
Bernie apologized for calling out Hillary on her emails! lol.
For the first half of the dem primary he played patty-cake with Hillary while she accumulated a giant insurmountable lead.
It wasn’t until he had no chance to catch up (by all accounts) when he started acting like a tough guy. lol.
Those are all facts.
Bernie gave every impression that he was part of Team Hillary. And once she won the primary after her campaign conspired with the DNC to screw Bernie over – he kissed her hiney up one leg and down the other.
I don’t give ANY of them credit. But I’m not naive and I’m VERY aware of what they are capable of.
Look at the latest Jill Stein recount scam if you question what I say.
Jill must be readying a switch to democrats.
.
The irony is that Jill Stein would have been much more electable than Hillary Clinton if she was a democrat and democrats seem to have a shortage of talent so maybe Jill Stein was promised the democratic presidential candidacy in 2020.
.
Previously Jill Stein said that she fears Hillary Clinton presidency more than Trump and that Hillary Clinton is a bigger threat for nuclear war than Trump.
How soon things change…
.
Everybody can be bought.
.
Bernie was bought when she endorsed Clinton but if one reads wikileaks emails from the Podesta emails it seems there was some secret agreement before the race for DNC nomination even started because there is references to using the leverage they have over Bernie Sanders.
.
Was Bernie just setup to energize the leftists but then he was a bit too popular?
.
If Bernie had hammered Clinton about her emails he would have won the democratic presidential nomination but he laid off and “fought” Clinton with his hands tied behind her back.
.
Bernie supporters were scammed by Bernie himself in addition to DNC?
A mummified Castro may be more electable than Hillary, but unless Peoria becomes predominantly a college town filled with kids with an inferiority complex vi-a-vis bicoastal students, I doubt she’ll play there anytime soon.
Castro/Che in their youth would have walked this election, though. By a landslide! And if that’s not an indictment of democracy absent very hard, insurmountably, boundaries on government reach, I don’t know what is.
Breaking News: Even the French are starting to hate the liberals. Gee, I can’t understand why!
This might be the start of a new Renaissance and a return to global sanity.
Not so long as the EU doesn’t change.
If Fillon wins France and Germany doesn’t go AfD (it won’t) it’s business as usual no matter what. Brussels knows this and is banking on it.
Sometime after safety declared expect a massive fight back to make sure such threats cannot occur again. Pro-EU propaganda, brainwashing, rush to tighter integration.
Without France, there will be no EU. Anyone who thought Brexit was just a one-off is going to be in for a surprise. Germany and Belgium can form an EU but right now it looks like Scandanavia is ready to dump this experiment and the French will be too. No country in its right mind wants to give its sovereignty away. This was the real story of the UK and US so far. Others will soon follow. A tsunami isn’t just one wave.
HI THERE I VOTED FILLON AND I WON / IN MY HOMETOWN HIS SCORE WAS 80 PERCENT AND MERELY 20 PERCENT FOR JUPPE
FILLON S WIFE PENELOPE HAS ENGLISH ORIGINS SO THAT S A GOOD SIGN SHE THINKS LIKE US
MEANWHILE FRENCH SOCIALISTS ARE MOURNING FIDEL CASTRO