French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is rapidly rising in recent election polls. He is now only four points behind both Marine Le Pe and Emanuel Macron in the latest BVA Poll.
Like Trump, Mélenchon uses social media. He has a huge following on You-Tube and conducted a presidential speech by hologram to crowds in Lyon and Paris simultaneously.
Today, Mélenchon launched “Fiscal Kombat“, a free video game on sharing wealth and combatting fraud. The hero? Well… take a guess.
Modified Translation From Above Link
Friday evening, Mélenchon, the candidate of “La France Insoumise” (Unsubmissive France) launched “Fiscal Kombat”, a video game in which he is the hero. Its objective: to shake the rich to recover the public money and to constitute the budget of the quinquennium that it would like to carry out.
This project was announced in episode 23 of its Weekly Review, as one of the flagship programs on its YouTube channel. It now takes the form of a browser game with a 16-bit aesthetic, freely inspired by the famous 1990 best seller Mortal Kombat.
The slogan of the game “shake them all!” Comes from the Pokémon license.
The hero, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, takes on monetary “powers of money”: Pierre Gattaz, Liliane Bettencourt, Jérôme Cahuzac, Nicolas Sarkozy, François Fillon, Christine Lagarde, and Emmanuel Macron.
The character catches them, shakes them and recovers money, until collecting a total of 279 billion euros, the total budget provided by Jean-Luc Mélenchon for his mandate, once in power.
“Tax fraud represents in France the equivalent of the annual deficit of the country’s budget. If the thugs paid what they owed and participated in the effort of everyone like everyone, there would be no deficit in this country, “explains Mélenchon.
To propel the launch of the game, a dedicated Twitter account was created, as well as reproductions of NES cartridges, Sega Megadrive or a PlayStation disc, in the colors of France Insoumise. The whole thing was conceived by a team of volunteers from various backgrounds, graphic designers, developers, under the supervision of Emmanuel Bompard, campaign director of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Video Sample
Any Guesses?
Will this help Mélenchon make it to the second round or take enough votes away from someone else thus changing the expected pairing of Macron vs. Le Pen?
The first round of voting April 23. That’s quite a bit of time for someone to make a big slip (or surge).
Meanwhile, to understand how tight this race has become, please see Wild French Polls: Spread Between Top Four Candidates Shrinks to 4 Percentage Points.
Addendum
I received an email from Boby Ce (MDT.BigBang) who says he is the lead developer and designer of Fiscal Kombat.
Boby states the design team was fully independent and not supervised by Emmanuel Bompard, campaign director of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, as the article (or translation) states.
Boby commented, “They were just glad knowing we did it, so they supported us in some kind for the marketing of the game but that’s all about it.”
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
–> “The whole thing was conceived by a team of volunteers from various backgrounds, graphic designers, developers, under the supervision of Emmanuel Bompard, campaign director of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.”
Imagine if the French put half as much effort into designing “regular” for-profit video games. Jobs and tax revenue.
I don’t know which politician is going to “win” the French election, but we all know the French economy will not
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“If the thugs paid what they owed….”
Yup. Anyone who doesn’t fork over, what you and your mob onesidedly decide they “owe” you, is most certainly a thug….
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The French will get the President they deserve.
Perhaps it will be this Socialist demagogue.
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Work is a favorite verb among work ethic Americans. The French word for work is pain. Consequently the French don’t do a lot of work. Prosperity eludes them. A common go to work breakfast among the French is a shot of liquor.
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Ooooh, harsh words for these fine examples of European Socialism. The shot of liquor for breakfast is to dull the pain of the day.
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Is that where Au Bon Pain comes from?
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French should return to their own franc and make it freely floating so markets could tell them when they make stupid political choices.
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The Euro is NOT working and it has caused bubbles galore in real estate (low interest rates), destruction of manufacturing (losing internal european competition to german efficiency in high value add products and losing lower education manufacturing jobs to the mass-imports from China) and hid this job destruction behind mass-deficit spending enabled by ECB and caused countries to get into more and more debt and worst of all it has stopped the signals that french politicians would get from the currency exchange rates for the franc when they made stupid political choices.
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Politicians need market-based signals to stop them from making stupid political decisions and a country’s own currency with a floating exchange rate is best form of getting these signals of reality into their political bubble.
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“Faecal Kombat.”
A game where the average voter fights a way through politicians bullish!t only to find they are the loser, no matter what.
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maybe the French have had enough. I remember they loved the American soldiers after WW2, so I wish them well, and hope they choose wisely. Stay away from the video game empty promise socialists.
the video was creepy in a way, and the sound effects annoying.
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We are now reduced to political campaigning via video games, social media, FB, Twitter, holograms……what does this say about the intellectual capacity of today’s young voter, Millennials, etc.. How can they possibly analyze or grasp the enormity of corrupt and disingenous messages, emanating from the mouths of politicians, via social media. Les Miserables comes to mind…..Can you hear the people sing, singing the songs of angry youth, vote for Melenchon, he’s cool and hip, check out his video, and he promises to steal from the rich, and give us “free stuff”!!! Frightening future for France, they deserve everything coming to them.
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“If the thugs paid what they owed and participated in the effort of everyone like everyone, there would be no deficit in this country, “explains Mélenchon.”
Actor Gerarde Depardieu left France and moved to Russia, when Hollande raised the top tax rate to 75%. A number of businessmen allegedly moved to Belgium. Hollande was forced to rescind the tax hike.
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It is unlikely that Melanchon is rising that much, but more likely that they are trying to slow the roll of Le Pen via the media.
All these extremist attacks throughout Europe will probably add to Le Pen’s support–not detract.
People want to feel safe in their own country, first and foremost.
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