May 7, 2012

More French exit poll results

Since there doesn't seem to be much in the English language press yet on French exit polls, and because France is, whether Jonah Goldberg likes it or not, a big deal, here are some polling results. A commenter writes:
I'm not French and I don't follow French politics, but I can read the language.
Some of the data at those links: 
Sarkozy won 58% among craftsmen, businessmen and CEOs. Compared to the last election 5 years ago he held his ground (46% vs. 46%) among "workers" (I'm guessing these are actually blue-collar workers), but lost 9% (52% to 43%) among top-level employees and people in "liberal professions" (who are those? college professors? teachers?) Sarkozy got 49% of the voters who work in the private sector, 37% of those who work in the public sector. He won 47% of permanent employees, 43% of the people employed through time-limited work contracts (temps, I guess) and 36% of the unemployed. So far nothing seems surprising to me. He WAS running against a Socialist. Sarkozy won 52% of the people who own their own homes, 40% among private-sector renters and 36% among the people living in public housing. I just learned something - French public housing must be far whiter than the US version. 36% for a "candidate of the right" - wow.  
The important stuff: Sarkozy got 59% of the Catholics and Hollande got 93% of the Muslims. The article literally said that Muslims "supported the left by 93%". It's pretty funny when you think about it. What can be more right-wing than Islam?  
Sarkozy got 41% of those who make less than 1,000 Euros per month, 45% of those who make between 1,000 and 2,000, more among those who make above 2,000. He got slightly more votes among those who've had 2 or more years of college than among those who've had less education than that. I'm curious about who people with post-graduate educations voted for, but that info isn't in the article.  
The biggest issues for Sarko voters were debt and deficits (65%) and immigration (53%). Those who voted for Hollande were more concerned with social inequality, the level of employment and with purchasing power.  
The article says that Sarkozy did well in the deindustrialized portion of France (their rust belt), which seems to be in the north-east. The article suggests that this is also the portion where the National Front usually does best.

Another interesting question would be what was the effect of Marine Le Pen's announcement that she would cast a blank ballot? Would Sarko have won if Le Pen had endorsed him? Any data on that?

87 comments:

Beecher Asbury said...

I cannot read or write French. But this campaign video of Hollande tells one all they need to know. I never knew blacks were that important in French elections.

HT: Larry Auster

Anonymous said...

Who did the Jews vote for?

Le Sigh said...

*Vague sense of satisfaction at Sarkozy's pandering to the Right blowing up in his face*

Here's to France's new President.

Anonymous said...

"Another interesting question would be what was the effect of Marine Le Pen's announcement that she would cast a blank ballot? Would Sarko have won if Le Pen had endorsed him? Any data on that."

This article from Le Monde says it's around 7%. People working in ballot polls for a long time say they have never seen anything like this.


« Des bulletins nuls, on n’en a jamais vu autant! »

MadMenInParis said...

The difference in term of voters was 1,130 Millions between Sarkozy and Hollande. So with 2 millions voters, Muslim did the elections.

Overseas territories have voted at 65% or more for Holland. They make also about 2 millions unhabitants.

Jews living in Israël voted at 93% for Sarkozy.

Overally Sarkozy was the winner among white french. But maybe for the first time in France and in Europe, Non-White people make the left won, like in the USA.

Anonymous said...

Strauss-Kahn could have been President by now if he had controlled the Weiner...

pdv said...

Please delete pdv post; figures are wrong, probably from a very early report, or just my misreading. Sorry.

Anonymous said...

"Blacklist" has been blacklisted.

Whiskey said...

I'd be VERY interested in gender breakdowns. My bet is that White women found that campaign video compelling, and joined with the non-White vote to push Hollande over the top.

Here in the US, White women + non-Whites = Democratic victory, only if the unmarried White female vote is suppressed or Republicans carry 'enough' (they can never win this group) do Republicans win, and carrying 'enough' or suppressing Dem turnout in that demo means "soft" Bush type candidates who don't scare them.

Anonymous said...

call it 'teenlist'

Anonymous said...

"This article from Le Monde says it's around 7%."

That article is about several individual precincts. What about the national level? According to this wiki the share of blank ballots ("blancs ou nuls") went up from 1.92% in the first round on 4/22/12 to 5.8% in the second round on 5/06/12. That's an increase of 3.88%, or of 1,445,217 blank votes. Hollande won by 3.26% or 1,139,316 votes. So yes, the increase in the number and percentage of blank votes is larger than the margin of Hollande's victory.

In 2007 the number of blank votes also jumped from the first (1.44%) to the second round (4.2%). I looked at 2002 - then blank votes went up from 3.38% (first round) to 5.39% (second round). In 1995 they went from 2.82% to 5.97%. So the current jump is bigger than in past elections, but not by very much.

I don't know how normal it is in France for parties that don't get into the second round to urge their supporters to cast blank votes in it. I guess it's human nature to be less satisfied with two choices than with a dozen choices, so even without third parties' urging an increase in blank votes would always be expected.

Anonymous said...

So basically Muslims were able to elect a President of France against the wishes of the White majority.

Unbelievable.

hbd chick said...

not exactly related -- and yet it is -- i came across some election results for greece, i.e. which parts of the country voted for the golden dawn (and other parties, too).

Anonymous said...

Hollande's victory was widely celebrated, even in Algiers casbah.

Er, sorry; in fact, that was Bastille column, Paris.

Meanwhile, far from the political brouhaha, French brunettes were talking cloth on the Champs-Élysées.

California kid said...

"It's pretty funny when you think about it. What can be more right-wing than Islam?"

Not really. Modern day leftism is about hatred of White people and Western Civ. So it doesn't matter what race, color, or creed you are. If you hate Whites, you're going to vote Left-wing. In fact that's what we see, everywhere.

Ray Sawhill said...

A friend who lives inFrance tells me that the real reason Hollande won is that the French tired of Sarkozy's vulgar glitzy style. She might be right -- hard to underestimate the importance of style to the French.

Anonymous said...

I did some searches. According to this French Slate article, French Jews have always massively voted for the left, but that started changing around 2000. The article says that they voted for Chirac in 2002, though it doesn't give figures or references. It says that in the first round of the 2007 election Sarkozy (who is part Jewish, of course) got 45% of the Jewish vote, 14% above his national level.

The article also says that less than half of French Muslims vote. I understood that they meant this about Muslims who are French citizens. The general French turnout in the last election was about 80%.

Anonymous said...

"I did some searches. According to this French Slate article, French Jews have always massively voted for the left, but that started changing around 2000."

The 80s born generation of Black and Arab French reached maturity...

Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleo said...

"because France is, whether Jonah Goldberg likes it or not, a big deal"

1) since your e-foe didn't say anything about the Hollande election (I went back to check) I trust this is just recycling a tiff from like ten years ago?
2) so pray tell why exactly is France a "big deal?" In the EU they are 2nd banana at best. Recently they struggled to achieve moderate interference in Libya. Were you thinking of the panoply of Francophone superpowers such as Haiti and Senegal?

Anonymous said...

The word Austerity has such old world ascetic, religious undertones that I'm surprised it is even used in European political campaigns. It wouldn't work in the US. No American campaign manager would ever let his candidate utter the word, except to criticize an opponent.

CJ said...

Had a conversation last week, between the two rounds of voting, with some very recent French immigrants to Canada. The convo in a nutshell ... crime/violence/Arabs/Islam/immigration are huge problems in France. Sarko (as they called him) talks a good game on these, but does very little. He's been very constant on this throughout his political career -- that is, he always sounds good but never does much. Acoording to these guys that's why so much of his vote bled off to the Front National and didn't want to come back.

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile diversity laws are a bitch.

How to destroy the effectiveness of a campaign.

Odds said...

Jeebus. That Hollande video is shocking. I had no idea they were openly campaigning for black and immigrant votes like that.

Well things have to get worse before they can get better. Hopefully the recession continues and Marine Le Pen take France in the next election.

Anonymous said...

off topic steve, but
I recently noticed two prominent ads for black swimmer cullen jones. Isn't he the guy who nearly threw the 4x100 for the US?
I remember caste football commenting, prior to the 2008 olympics he more $$ in endorsements than Phelps or any other US swimmer.

Could someone explain the economics of this to me?

sunbeam said...

Why are you so surprised he lost?

1) I don't speak French, but Sarkozy radiates "I am a Dick" with the intensity of a million flaming suns.

2) Was immigration or socialism versus anything the crux of this election? It seems to me it has everything to do with the EU and the recent crisis.

I kind of expect more dominos to fall elsewhere in europe over the next few years, because I don't think these issues are going away any time soon.

And because I don't believe they are going away, regardless of whether Sarkozy won, or what this guy attempt to do I don't think this government is going to be doing much of anything.

I'd watch the upcoming legislative elections. From the sound of it this guy is going to be handicapped from the get go, but we'll see.

The countries that are having problems in the eurozone all have the same basic problem:

Germany is a mercantilist state, just like all the asian success stories.

Only they get to do this in the eurozone.

Time alone will tell, but my guess is the European Community doesn't last too many more years.

Anonymous said...

"Not really. Modern day leftism is about hatred of White people and Western Civ."

Yes. More generally, this illustrates that all politics is tribal. Everything else is a smokescreen. The left says that it's for feminism, secularism, gay marriage, etc., but in France 93% of the Muslims vote for it. This is because it's not really for any of those things, not in the abstract, universal sense, anyway. It's not even for the poor or for workers against capitalists. All politics is tribal.

ogunsiron said...

Sarkozy didn't do as bad as I was expecting : 48.5% of the french voters voted against the socialist, though that wasn'enough.

93% of the muslims ( north-africans and I suppose that also includes the african muslims) voted for the left, including I believe 23% who voted for an outright stalinist piece of garbage ( Melanchon) whose anti-white and anti-christian hate is hard to understand ( Melanchon promised to pretty much sever ties with Germany and instead link France's destiny with that of North-Africa. He dreamed of a France that wasn't a western nation anymore but a totally universal nation!).

The blacks from the overseas departments voted 64% for the socialist but also 36% for centre and right parties.

I expect the african black christians to have voted Hollande overwhelmingly.

I read an article about an Ivorian muslim who was going to vote for Sarkozy. Was it because he shared Sarkozy's political philosophy ? Haha nope. He was happy that Sarkozy had installed a muslim northerner on the throne back in
the Ivory Coast and that's pretty much it.

France has seen nothing yet of the joys of tribal politics.

Anonymous said...

Matthew 6:51 PM,

If you decline to support Republicans, the even-worse Democrats are likely to be elected. A few years of them, and it will be much harder to reverse course even if "good" Republicans subsequently come to power. Think about the Supreme Court appointments and several additional years of full-steam third world immigration that Democratic administrations would entail.

Anonymous said...

Lots of French say they didn't like Sarkozy's style, his flamboyance, that he was an embarrassment to them.

Anonymous said...

I heard that the french black caribbeans don't like the immigrants from sub-sahara Africa (Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast,..)

ogunsiron said...

Golden Dawn must be the first outright neonazi party to get voted into parliament in a long time in Europe. I don't know if they've been trying to clean their image up but I had heard of them because a lot of the nazi black metal bands from Greece were also Golden Dawn militants. I don't know if they still have clips on youtube but they're obviously a neonazi outfit.

ogunsiron said...

"liberal professions" (who are those? college professors? teachers?)
---
self employed professionals like doctors, dentists and lawyers.

Whiskey said...

The problem with that strategy Matthew, vote third party protest, is that Obama here, and Hollande there, will simply drown you immediately and irrevocably with massive immigration, electing a new people in a few years.

Camp of the Saints is now a reality. Hollande certainly will open the borders wide, and likely start enforcing Sharia Law. Repeal of the Burka Ban is assured, as is protected status for Islam and Muslims.

The point is not to "win" because there is no possibility whatsoever of winning. Rather it is to lose as slowly as possible.

The "Get more White votes" strategy has IMHO a fatal flaw, I expect gender breakdowns in France will confirm this: White women don't like it. By all accounts White guys in de-industrialized northern France supported Le Pen and Sarkozy. But White French women according to previous reports abhorred both Le Pen and her father.

There's a reason why Obama got something like 78% of unmarried White women (can't recall exact numbers but around that range).

Why EAT PRAY LOVE in a foreign land when you can import it into your homeland? See The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a SWPL movie to end all SWPL movies.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

Matthew 6:51 PM,

If you decline to support Republicans, the even-worse Democrats are likely to be elected."

Ultimately, always opting to choose the lesser of two evils is a bubble-sorting algorithm for finding the second most evil thing.

Steve Sailer said...

"so pray tell why exactly is France a "big deal?""

Because more than a few people around the world know a little of the history and culture of France, and thus find new developments in France more interesting than in other countries where they are much more clueless about the story so far. For example, the Le Pen family is big on Joan of Arc symbolism. Well, I've heard of Joan of Arc, so I get the reference. Same with references to the French Revolution -- I'm not at sea.

In contrast, South Korea, objectively speaking, is a fairly important country, but it's history is opaque to me. The Japanese conquered it in 1905? 1895? Something like that ... Before that ... well, no doubt a whole bunch of stuff happened, judging by all the Korean costume dramas on Channel 18 in L.A., but it would take a big investment of time to get up to speed on Korean history. And modern South Korean political history seems like a whole bunch of guys named Kim.

There's just a lot of path dependency in which countries get paid attention, too, and France has been a big deal for a very long time, so attention will continue to be paid to France.

Kai Carver said...

An Ipsos poll just before the second round suggests only half of Le Pen supporters voted for Sarkozy.
A third of Le Pen supporters abstained or voted blank (as did a third of followers of Bayrou, a right-centrist). One reason is that several leaders of Sarkozy's own party clearly stated that, if given a choice between Le Pen and a Socialist, they would vote Socialist.

Age-wise, Sarkozy only has a majority among old people (over 60). He also leads among the rich and the self-employed.

An amusing note: some noticed that among the many flags waved at the Socialist victory celebration at the Bastille, very few were French. Besides the red banners of unions and far-left parties, and European flags, there were many foreign flags. Touching that the whole world comes to pay homage to the new President, isn't it? The amusing part is that a TV reporter gushed about the diverse crowd waving "Irish flags". These were in fact Ivorian flags (same colors, in reverse order). Wikipedia has a list of easily confused flags, quite helpful in these confusing times.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous 6:15 PM

"2) so pray tell why exactly is France a "big deal?" In the EU they are 2nd banana at best. Recently they struggled to achieve moderate interference in Libya. Were you thinking of the panoply of Francophone superpowers such as Haiti and Senegal?"

It matters if you are the kind of guy who cares about Moliére, Proust, Flaubert, Descartes, LaPlace, Pasteur, etc...

I guess you are just not that kind of guy, you know...the kind of guy with something between his ears.

Then, there is the issue of weight...World's 5th largest economy(with only 56 million people and a lot less overall debt than the U.S), World's 3rd largest nuclear arsenal, World's 4th most spoken language, World's most famous capital-city, etc.

And finally: class, charm and sophistication. The French may not be as rich as Americans in terms of PPP per capita - which is not surprising since they are a crowded little country -, but they do seem to get a lot more milleage with their wealth than Americans do: they dress better, eat better, decorate their houses better and generally just live better.

Anonymous said...

France selled 126 combat planes to India thanks to the Lybia mission...

Anonymous said...

The Golden Dawn guys certainly aren't shy about adopting Nazi imagery. http://tinyurl.com/7gw7xjl
. That's a black-on-red flag in the background with their swastika-like symbol seen behind them on it. The security looks like a bunch of skinhead goons.

It's not like this is the press finding crypto-symbolism the NSA supercomputers couldn't decode in order to accuse them of fascism. It's easy for a party to pick symbols that don't echo the Nazis, and one has to conclude it's the fascist demographic that they're after.

In France it seems the Left had a better GOTV and ground game.

Anonymous said...

So let me get this straight: African immigrants now effectively pick the President of France, that country that was once a European mainstay?

Anonymous said...

"The Golden Dawn guys certainly aren't shy about adopting Nazi imagery."

I just looked up a list of parties in the new Greek parliament. Golden Dawn has 21 seats out of 300. The Communist Party of Greece has 26 seats. Judging by the Wikipedia, their imagery prominently features the red hammer and sickle. Modern Greece seems like a pretty wild place.

Anonymous said...

the rust belt is, indeed, the north-east of france. cities like lille, roubaix etc. There's also cultural bleed-off into waloon belgium (liege etc)

Beecher Asbury said...

As Marine put it, they call us racists, protectionists and xenophobes. Then they come asking for our endorsement, echo our words and seek our votes.

That sounds like the GOP. They want to invade-the-world, invite-the-world, be-in-hock-to-the-world. Anyone who opposes this like Paul and his supporters are called isolationists, racists and protectionists and other terms that are much less flattering.

But they sure do want those crazy Ron Paul and racist HBD-types to vote for them in the fall.

I hope Ron Paul and his supporters, along with a good chunk of the HDB sphere hold their collective middle finger and do to the GOP what Le Pen and a lot of her supporters did to Sarko.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps in the future the center-right can never win again in France.
Perhaps we'll see a polarization between the white nationalist FN and the black/brown defending socialists.
Ain't 'diversity' working out great?

Anonymous said...

I hope Ron Paul and his supporters, along with a good chunk of the HDB sphere hold their collective middle finger and do to the GOP what Le Pen and a lot of her supporters did to Sarko.

This is the kind of nihilism John Derbyshire has repeatedly warned against. It's clear that both parties are PC to a fault and in the long run, we are doomed. However, Derbyshire, being in no hurry to get there, votes Republican, because they are the lesser of two evils. The reality is that Democratic vote-buying via entitlement programs large and small and the ever expanding civil service unions means that conservative are an ever-shrinking demographic. Until the lights go out, a delaying rearguard action is the best we can hope for.

Tom Regan said...

For all of you talking about FN's chances in 2017, or urging the GOP to change course - I don't know whether to admire or detest your idealism and faith in democracy.
Its not going to happen, they won't let it happen - there is way, way, way too much at stake for them to allow us disgruntled types to get in the way.
We are like the pitiable last French colonialists left hanging on in Vietnam, as depicted in Apocalypse Now Redux.

Simon in London said...

"The Golden Dawn guys certainly aren't shy about adopting Nazi imagery."

I was initially sceptical of the media description of them as Neo-Nazis; the media are often happy to call the likes of eg right-liberal Geert Wilders a Nazi. It seems that it may not be entirely unfair in GD's case though, certainly they do seem overtly Fascistic.

Anonymous said...

Re: Muslims support of Hollande.

As the rabid Elmo puppet, James Carville, once said, it's the economy, stupid. Euro Muslims consume welfare at the same rates as NAMs here.

Anonymous said...

The same thing will inevitably happen in the UK as the white population dwindles and the non-white immigrant population exponates.
The Labour Party always has and always will hoover-up at least 90% of the 'minority' vote, although the Tories have never done anyhing substantial to halt or reverse immigration, the immigrants who still feel vulnerable and threatened vote Labour in a herd instinct knowing that Labour is frindly to them and will defend and fight for them.
In the coming years this block imigrant vote will prove the decisive factor in British elections (even if Scotland goes - the numbers of immigrants in England is just so huge and the increase so fast), so you can conclude the Tories are doomed.
Interesting to see in the London mayoral election that the unpopular Marxist Ken Livingstone lost to the charismatic, shambling, shambolic, polar bear, Boris Johnson by a gnat's dick of votes. That was whitey's residual power in London, another 5 yeras and they won't be possible.

hbd chick said...

@simon in london - "I was initially sceptical of the media description of them as Neo-Nazis; the media are often happy to call the likes of eg right-liberal Geert Wilders a Nazi. It seems that it may not be entirely unfair in GD's case though, certainly they do seem overtly Fascistic."

yeah, between the flag and their "swastika" (the greek meander) and the black t-shirts. i mean, if the jackboot fits....

i haven't seen anything about any of their policies (like economic, if they have any) -- only what they have to say about immigration. some of their ideas are pretty extreme -- they're not debating whether or not to build a wall on the greek-turkish border (where most of the illegal immigrants enter greece) -- they're just planning to place landmines on the border! guess it would be pretty d*mn effective, but it's a bit over the top.

greece has been hit the hardest by the eurocrisis, although spain's not looking very good these days either. it's interesting to see which way these first toppled dominos are falling.

Londoner said...

Time was when the French left was patriotic and nationalistic - i.e. what a left-wing movement should be - and the right was the globalist, elitist, imperialist faction that invited the world (or the French-speaking bits of it) out of a sense of imperial destiny (see also: British Conservative Party). Mitterand was a socialist but he was also a reactionary Roman Catholic with a keen sense of France's grandeur. I had some modest hopes for Hollande - if he could substitute French patriotism for multiculturalism then I think he could have the makings of a good leader, but that's obviously not going to happen.

It is good that Sarkozy has been removed, though. I feel slightly happier about Europe now that he, Blair and Berlusconi have finally been deposed, whatever the (manifold) faults of their successors.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

The reality is that Democratic vote-buying via entitlement programs large and small and the ever expanding civil service unions means that conservative are an ever-shrinking demographic."

And by being a reliable supporter of fake conservatives, you are helping them.

"Until the lights go out, a delaying rearguard action is the best we can hope for."

Good, you man the trenches and screen us while the enemy horde sweeps over you. The rest of us will decamp to the rear and regroup for the next battle.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

Time was when the French left was patriotic and nationalistic - i.e. what a left-wing movement should be - and the right was the globalist, elitist, imperialist faction that invited the world (or the French-speaking bits of it) out of a sense of imperial destiny (see also: British Conservative Party).

Londoner - the move of the Left away from the working class and ethnic nationalism is the most under-remarked trend of the century. I've written my own little scribblings but someone like Sailer really needs to do it justice.

I'm also still waiting for Steve to explore myopia. It's one of those subjects that researchers seem strangely uncurious about. Like HBD in general, it seems to be one of those intellectual chokepoints where We Dare Go No Further.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

Until the lights go out, a delaying rearguard action is the best we can hope for.

Then an equally valid strategy is to vote the trainwreck here sooner, while there's still some of us left.

Pat Boyle said...

When I was a little kid growing up in the nineteen fifties everything seemed just swell. The Eisenhower Presidency in retrospect seems to loom in our imaginations as a kind of golden age. We had stability and prosperity.

Some of that was no doubt due to Eisenhower himself. Everyone who worked for or with Eisenhower trusted him and respected him. He stands in stark contrast to Johnson, Nixon, or Clinton in terms of personal integrity and honor.

But today the conventional wisdom is that the real cause of the rosy conditions in America after WWII was not the leadership but the lack of competition. The Germans had decimated Russia, and we had decimated Germany. England was broke and France was prostrate. Japan was occupied. We were the only unharmed industrial power left.

So this morning as we contemplate the break up of the EU and France's descent into socialism and multiculturalism, maybe America will have another decade of global dominance.

In France they are voting to lower the retirement age to 60 while Paul Ryan and the Republicans argue for raising it here to 67. Productive life ends, we now know, at about 70. You start being economically productive at about 20 so there are roughly fifty years in which an individual can contribute. So France is planning to throw away the last ten years. That's one fifth of the time available in which a person is fit enough to produce.

Muslims support the new regime too as well as France's Africans. Both of these groups are low productivity cohorts.

The socialists plan to raise taxes on the wealthy and capital has already begun to flee.

In short France seems intent on doing everything possible to crash its economy.

Good. Or I should say good for us, not so good for them. If this works out the way many of us anticipate, France will become a watchword for economic self destruction. For a while there we were all being warned about becoming another Greece. A problem with that is that Greece is not a real clear case. Northern Europeans have doubts about the abilities of Southern Europeans. But France is better known by Americans and France has long been one of the kingpins of Western Civilization. If France crashes as seems likely, every American, Brit and German will heed the lesson.

Every Republican running for office on a platform of austerity, full funding of pensions, entitlement reform, and restrictions on illegal immigration will invoke the lesson of France.

France is doomed. Happy day are here again.

Albertosaurus

Victor said...

@Anonymous 8:04 PM

If you decline to support Republicans, the even-worse Democrats are likely to be elected. A few years of them, and it will be much harder to reverse course even if "good" Republicans subsequently come to power. Think about the Supreme Court appointments and several additional years of full-steam third world immigration that Democratic administrations would entail."

I needn't remind you that the most liberal judges on the Supreme Court e.g. Burger, Warren, Souter et al., were appointed by Republicans.

Anonymous said...

It matters if you are the kind of guy who cares about Moliére, Proust, Flaubert, Descartes, LaPlace, Pasteur, etc... I guess you are just not that kind of guy, you know...the kind of guy with something between his ears. Then, there is the issue of weight...World's 5th largest economy(with only 56 million people and a lot less overall debt than the U.S), World's 3rd largest nuclear arsenal, World's 4th most spoken language, World's most famous capital-city, etc. And finally: class, charm and sophistication. The French may not be as rich as Americans in terms of PPP per capita - which is not surprising since they are a crowded little country -, but they do seem to get a lot more milleage with their wealth than Americans do: they dress better, eat better, decorate their houses better and generally just live better.

Don't forget the wine - Burgundy, Champagne, Bordeaux, the Rhone, the Loire, the Alsace - nobody does wine like the French.

Brian said...

It looks like Marine's abstention did effect the score, although she herself is not claiming this. From Le Figaro:

“Two million ballots were declared blank or spoilt on Sunday – 5.8% of all votes. This “protest vote” was particularly important in those rural areas where the National Front scored very highly in the first round.”

Anonymous said...

what is the actual number of muslim votes? As a percentage of the electorate?

Anonymous said...

"Until the lights go out, a delaying rearguard action is the best we can hope for."

That's just loser talk.

jody said...

speaking of myopia, australian scientists report that up to 90% of east asian teenagers now have actual myopia. from time:

http://tinyurl.com/7fps3uq

because they are grinders. exactly like i've been saying for years. reading a math book for 6 hours a day now means an epidemic of short sighted asians, which will become a society wide problem because nobody will be able to see anything, leading to lots of long term issues.

Anonymous said...

Reply to anon at 6:15 Pm;

French is most certainly NOT the world's fourth most spoken language. In fact you are not even close. And French is becoming less important all the time.

Simon in London said...

Anon:
"Interesting to see in the London mayoral election that the unpopular Marxist Ken Livingstone lost to the charismatic, shambling, shambolic, polar bear, Boris Johnson by a gnat's dick of votes. That was whitey's residual power in London, another 5 yeras and they won't be possible."

Not sure about that - the London electoral area is huge, and Outer London includes vast sprawling lower-middle/upper working class suburbs. Some of these like Emma West's Croydon have been transformed from white to non-white just in the past few years; going down to the Croydon Ikea about once a year I get a sort of time-lapse photography effect that makes the change very noticeable. But there's a lag between new immigrants moving in, usually from the third world, and getting settled/organised enough to start voting.
Another question is whether the government will tighten up on vote r fraud; Tower Hamlets is officially only 25% Muslim, yet is Islamist controlled - this appears to be a mix of bloc voting and outright fraud.

If fraud opportunities are reduced, I can see it easily being 10-15 years before a Boris type becomes unelectable in London.

Finally, London continues to be a magnet for us provincial white British, and for whites from all over the Anglosphere, EU etc. A lot of these are potential Tory voters, although the natives skew young and thus leftish. But I think there are enough factors to make London's fate unpredictable - it's more like New York, whereas Birmingham or Leicester are much easier to map their futures.

Anonymous said...

I believe Sarkozy had (not sure how long ago) called on rightist voters, if they didn't like him, to vote Socialist rather than for le Pen. The le Pen voters just repaid the compliment.

(as far as I can gather from the UK, the gripe of the Right was that Sarko was "all mouth and no trousers" when it came to immigration. Talk tough, business as usual in practice.)

The Anti-Gnostic said...

jody - myopia shows up early, long before the young high-achievers ever hit study hall. Fighter pilots are grinds who've spent hours reading textbooks all their lives before they even apply to flight school with their 20/20 uncorrected vision. The underlying condition is, most commonly, the horizontal axis of the eyeball is too long. How does reading cause the whole eyeball itself to extrude?

Like I say, there seems to be a bizarre lack of curiosity about the condition.

Anonymous said...

@Pat

"The Germans had decimated Russia, and we had decimated Germany."

You've been watching too many hollywood WWII flicks, dude.

It was Russia who crushed Germany, and not America. 65% of German war casualties in WWII were caused by the Red Army. And when America entered the European front on July, 1944, the Red Army was already in Poland and Germany would have lost the war anyway if the U.S had never entered the war.

It is amazing what they teach American kids in history class. Pure nationalistic propaganda.

Anonymous said...

"Like I say, there seems to be a bizarre lack of curiosity about the condition."

I agree. I have extreme myopia and my college advisor noticed this because of the thickness of my glasses.

He told me (this was 25 years ago) that such myopia was probably a sign of high intelligence, because such a burdensome trait could probably only co-exist with the trait of high intelligence. Yes, I suppose before the advent of sight corrected vision, myopia was probably a big handicap especially in warfare. Literally, without glasses or contacts I am practically blind.

He told me that he had read studies that indicated that Phi Beta Kappa members were disproportionately myopic.

For the record my graduate school test scores were: Verbal GRE (top 1%), Math GRE (top 8%), LSAT (top 3%)

My own background is White Christian European (as far as I know sans a DNA study).

I did notice that some studies indicate that over 80% of Chinese in China have myopia which is the highest rate in the world.

I wonder if this explains some of the negative remarks I have heard by friends regarding Asian drivers near where I live.

Interesting topic for me in particular.

Baloo said...

No, French is a terrific language, but it's smaller than English, Mandarin, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, and Arabic, at least, and probably Portuguese and Russian, and I'm probably forgetting something.... I was right. Look at Wikipedia:
Languages by number of speakers.

Baloo said...

Oops. But it comes in as number five if you count both native and second-language speakers. So anon isn't that far off. Missed Russian. These are all estimates, anyway, and I'd probably be counted as a 2d lang speaker, tho I'm far, far from fluent.
Total number of speakers

Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleo said...

"Then, there is the issue of weight...World's 5th largest economy(with only 56 million people and a lot less overall debt than the U.S), World's 3rd largest nuclear arsenal, World's 4th most spoken language, World's most famous capital-city"

You are too funny. French hegemony is nigh? They are dictating terms to Berlin? BTW I enjoyed your cartoon that Reason Online used to illustrate their austerity article

Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleo said...

"the gripe of the Right was that Sarko was "all mouth and no trousers" "

Sarkozy was tacking left (Gallic version) all year. I am not convinced that even people in France believe a decisive transition of power has taken place. Hollande is a maneuvering insider like Sarkozy except not as mouthy or short.

Anonymous said...

Reply to Baloo:

With all due respect to you and the figures you cite, I very strongly question French as number five in languages known, understood or spoken. Even the figures you cite are fifteen years old. The French language is losing ground just about everywhere... particularly in Canada where I live. (Not that the Canadian Federal Government linguisticrats would ever admit to that.)

Baloo said...

Oh, I agree, Anon. I hadn't noticed that the figures were that old, but like I said, they're estimates, anyway, and estimating how many speak French or anything else as a second language is pretty dubious. Like I said, they might count anybody who's ever taken French lessons in school in America as a speaker, which would be ridiculous. How do they estimate that in Canada? Do they count Anglophones who have a smattering as French speakers too? About the only growth in French I could imagine would maybe be in some African countries where it's official and the population is growing, but even that is doubtful. I was surprised that they had it at number five. I was sure that Portuguese was higher than that. And actually, it's hard to decide just who you count as a speaker of any language. Do they count Haitian creole speakers as French speakers? I know they count dialects of Arabic as one language, when I understand they're not mutually comprehensible at all. So Arabic is a stretch. But you're right, I'm sure, that French is in decline, and will decline in the future.

Anonymous said...

Sarko was elected in 2007 based on the claim he would implement more reasonable immigration policies. And yet all these minorities were still there in France to toss him out of office. Sounds like he didn't do his job. If he had, there would've been fewer minority voters and a happier National Front.

That's the problem with "conservative" parties in almost any Western country: they aren't at all serious about their social conservatism. All they do is implement policies favorable to the wealthy. If you keep electing them for this you get what you deserve. The French Right now understands they can have immigration control and business-friendly policies, or they can have neither.

As for the parties like Golden Dawn, or BNP, etc., I have no truck with them. How hard is it to say "we will secure the borders and deport immigrants and non-citizens"? You don't have to sound like or look like or think like a Nazi to make that point. They undermine their own (purported) cause.

Matthew said...

The tide turns against the Left when the credit card runs out; when the government can no longer fund the welfare state with other (future) peoples' money; when a massive share of Left-voting public employees lose their government jobs and realize they're never coming back; when black and Muslim immigrants are no longer paid for not working and for having hordes of children; when native French are forced to live cheek-by-jowl with minorities who despise them; when the government no longer even has the capacity to protect the law-abiding; and when native French are once again required to bear and raise children in order to assure comfort in old age, as pensions and social security wither and disappear.

That's when the tide turns. The only real hope is that the credit card gets yanked before it's too late, and not after.

Anonymous said...

As for the parties like Golden Dawn, or BNP, etc., I have no truck with them. How hard is it to say "we will secure the borders and deport immigrants and non-citizens"? You don't have to sound like or look like or think like a Nazi to make that point. They undermine their own (purported) cause.

And thats all the BNP have done, they have a full spectrum attack from the MSM however determined to brand them as nazis at every available opportunity.

You talk as if any reasonable person merely had to state the above phrase and be understood. Surely you realize that even discussing these issues in public and not constantly stating how excited you are about your coming minority status is to be branded a nazi?

Anonymous said...

It was Russia who crushed Germany, and not America. 65% of German war casualties in WWII were caused by the Red Army. And when America entered the European front on July, 1944, the Red Army was already in Poland and Germany would have lost the war anyway if the U.S had never entered the war.

I take your point but we are into 'what if' territory then. US out of the war then what about Britain? No blockade of Germany allowing Germany to get oil, resources from abroad then its a different story. No round the clock bombing of Germany, all those divisions and aircraft in the east instead of the west. And what about all the allied aid to the USSR, is that still included in this new scenario? The Soviet victory looks a lot less inevitable.

For example in 1944/45 the Germans kept around 10,000 88mm AA guns in Germany for air defence. All of these could have been used as anti-tank guns in the east. Enough not just to stop the Soviet advance but totally destroy their tank force. (The USSR *only* had 25,000 operational). German to Soviet kill ratios were high throughout the war. 2.5 tank kills for every AT gun doesnt seem implausible.

Anonymous said...

French may be in decline as a language, France isnt likley to be a superpower in the near future - agreed. But they are still one of the Big Boys on the world stage in relative terms.

Laguna Beach Fogey said...

It's never too late. Men of the West are just going to have to 'man up' and fall in line, that's all. It can be done.

Matthew said...

"It was Russia who crushed Germany, and not America. 65% of German war casualties in WWII were caused by the Red Army. And when America entered the European front on July, 1944, the Red Army was already in Poland and Germany would have lost the war anyway if the U.S had never entered the war."

Come again? Britain was in the war from the very beginning - well before Russia, which had a pact with Germany to divide Poland. It was the frst country to really commit to fighting Germany.

Primarily because Russia had performed so poorly in its war with tiny Finland (Stalin had purged many of his best generals) was Hitler enticed into attacking Russia.

America entered the resource war against Germany - providing the Allies with materiale - almost from the beginning. It entered the military war against Germany in November 1942, in Africa. Depending on whether or not you consider Sicily to be part of Europe, it entered the European front in July 1943 or September 1943, when we invaded the Italian mainland. The US Army Air Force had been engaged in a bombing campaign against Germany since late 1942. And the Normandy Campaign began in early June 1944, not July.

When America's military entered the war in 1942, the campaign in Russia was just turning. The Western allies could have won without Russia, but only with much higher casualties. Alone, without Britain and America fighting them in Africa and bombing the west, Russia probably wouldn't have won at all. Militarily and industrially they were just too far behind.

Anonymous said...

"Surely you realize that even discussing these issues in public and not constantly stating how excited you are about your coming minority status is to be branded a nazi?"

Yes, I know that even the truth is controversial. But the history of Nick Griffin and the BNP is enough to make immigration sanity disreputable. Tied to their statements, their beliefs, they will never garner a majority, and will taint anyone with similar views. In 2010, when everyone was hoping/fearing the BNP would have a breakthrough year, the BNP managed only to garner 1.9% of the vote.

My problem with them is similar to the problem I have with John Derbyshire (whom I love, and think is in no way a racist or a Nazi). The public is extremely sensitive to anything sounding like racism. When discussing issues of race you can't sound mean, or you'll be silenced or ignored.

Anonymous said...

• Around 50% of German casualties were inflicted by the Soviets if you include captured, thought you could argue that it was weighted at the best troops.

• U.S/U.K handled virtually the entire air-war, destroying the Germans. 40% of German industrial production was airplanes; air-war was not a detail. In addition an estimated 1/3 of German industrial production was destroyed by bombing.

• U.S/U.K handled the naval blockade and the war in the Atlantic.

• U.S took virtually 100% of the burden of dealing with Japan.

• U.S armed and fed the Soviets to some extent.

• Treat of invasion held up massive German forces throughout 43 and 44.
Overall, it is quite fair to say the U.S beat Germany.

Given how close the Soviets were to losing, the most likely outcome of the Anglos not fighting from say 1940 would have been German victory. Let's also not forget that the Soviets helped Germany immensely in 39 and 40.

You are too ready to accept a bias leftist interpretation of history directed against your own country.

Anonymous said...

Anti-Gnostic,

In point of fact: "Myopic changes stabilize during high school, but another rash of nearsightedness occurs during early adulthood. This typically affects people who do a lot of reading—medical students, law students, and, ironically, military flight school recruits, whose training consists of intensive classroom work. In fact, so many Air Force recruits become myopic, and therefore ineligible to fly fighter jets, during their first year of training that the Air Force asked the National Research Council to convene a panel of specialists to investigate whether there was a myopia epidemic. The panel concluded that rates of myopia among Americans hadn’t changed over the past couple of decades."
http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/pdfs/data/1995/148-20/14820-21.pdf

Academic grinding to the detriment of outdoor activity certainly seems to be one of the major causes of myopia.

"Massive rise in Asian eye damage

Up to 90% of school leavers in major Asian cities are suffering from myopia - short-sightedness - a study suggests.

Researchers say the "extraordinary rise" in the problem is being caused by students working very hard in school and missing out on outdoor light.

The scientists told the Lancet that up to one in five of these students could experience severe visual impairment and even blindness.

In the UK, the average level of myopia is between 20% and 30%.

According to Professor Ian Morgan, who led this study and is from the Australian National University, 20-30% was once the average among people in South East Asia as well.

"What we've done is written a review of all the evidence which suggests that something extraordinary has happened in east Asia in the last two generations," he told BBC News.

Prof Ian Morgan Australian National University

"They've gone from something like 20% myopia in the population to well over 80%, heading for 90% in young adults , and as they get adult it will just spread through the population. It certainly poses a major health problem."

Eye experts say that you are myopic if your vision is blurred beyond 2m (6.6ft). It is often caused by an elongation of the eyeball that happens when people are young.

According to the research, the problem is being caused by a combination of factors - a commitment to education and lack of outdoor light.

Professor Morgan argues that many children in South East Asia spend long hours studying at school and doing their homework. This in itself puts pressure on the eyes, but exposure to between two and three hours of daylight acts as a counterbalance and helps maintain healthy eyes.

The scientists believe that a chemical called dopamine could be playing a significant part. Exposure to light increases the levels of dopamine in the eye and this seems to prevent elongation of the eyeball."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17942181

Anonymous said...

Reply to Baloo:

Hello. Here in Canada exceedingly loose standards are used to count French speakers (called Francophones in Canada-speak) and even more so when it comes to bilinguals . All the (self-reported, no checking for verification) Canadian census asks is "can you speak both official languages well enough to conduct a conversation". That's it. Nothing more. What kind of a conversation? For how long? Undoubtedly the number of people 'knowing' French is significantly inflated, much as Ottawa wants, in order to make it appear its ludicrous, damaging and very expensive language polices are "working".

Anonymous said...

The Soviet Union would have defeated Nazi Germany, and her various European allies, (Romania, Italy, Finland, etc,) all by herself. The war would have lasted longer and been more costly, but I don't see any realistic prospect of German conquest of the USSR. The Germans were only able to launch an all-front wide offensive in 1941, for five months. Even then, and with the huge advantage of surprise and the red army being caught completely out of position, they hardly got halfway to Hitler's so-called "A-A line". This was itself a very long way from the Urals, the point the Wehrmact would have to go before the USSR would begin to break up according to Germany's own intelligence estimates. By the time of the D-Day invasion, which was the only point at which Anglo-American armies began to enter serious and prolonged combat with German forces the Soviets had already inflicted about 4,500,000 casualties on the German army.

Anonymous said...

"By the time of the D-Day invasion, which was the only point at which Anglo-American armies began to enter serious and prolonged combat with German forces the Soviets had already inflicted about 4,500,000 casualties on the German army."

What we're postulating here is whether Germany would have won if either the Western allies or the Soviet Union had not been involved. Without Britain, America, Canada, etc. there's no blockade, no bombing campaign, no trouble in Africa, no need to defend against the eventual invasion, no Lend-Lease, etc. A pretty damn significant contribution, even as America and, to a degree, Britain, were also having to fend off Japan. I think the West makes the better arument that it could've won, though not easily. Without the troubles in the West, without American aid, the Soviets wouldn't have lasted.

The West gets criticized for not supposedly entering the European theater until mid-1944 (as if Italy weren't part of Europe), but we were inflicting serious damage on Germany in Africa, Italy, and via bombing raids, for nearly 2 years prior to that.

Anonymous said...

"Without the troubles in the West, without American aid, the Soviets wouldn't have lasted."

Your very wrong, but of course it can't be disproven since there is no time machine to replay history with different variables entered into some kind of computer game slot.

The USSR was much, much tougher then given credit for. Its people were conditioned to great hardships and suffering in ways Americans cannot begin to understand. Its political leaders were inured to loss of substantial amounts of territory without going under. During the siege of Leningrad 1,000,000 Soviet civilians died, mainly through starvation. But there was never any popular pressure on the city's leaders to surrender. The Soviet leadership never lost the ability to maintain organizational control over tens of millions of people and millions of square miles of territory. The vast size of the USSR, its lack of metalled roads, its many north to south flowing, wide rivers (which impeded a west to east invasion,) its huge primeval forests (excellent cover for partisans, which in the USSR ran into the hundreds of thousands), its ferocious winters, different gauge rail-track, and sheer spatiality all worked together to make the country invulnerable. Nor should Soviet powers of improvisation be discounted either. Finally the Soviets would have had every incentive in the world to continue fighting since Nazi ideology considered Slavs as sub-human and the policies of the Nazis was their genocidal removal. What reason would they have had to sue for peace? In the end, the Germans would have lost no matter what they did, including using poison gas at Leningrad, Stalingrad and Sevastopol. (Which they didn't because of fear of British retaliation on German cities).