Ok now I’m so confused, can someone more in tune with French politics enlighten me? Just last week it seemed really doom and gloom with all the talk of the far right Le Pen and her party dominating the polls, then Macron and his party (ig a center or center left party?) talking about dropping out to deny Le Pen the majority
But now the actual left wing party is appearing to actually dominate? Were the French polls wrong like they are in the US or something?
The French Left and Macron’s centrists both agreed to drop out of competitive races and support each other’s candidates. With that, many of the races that were previously considered to be in the far-right’s favor changed to favor the left, no longer having to split the vote with the centrists.
A great example of how a multiparty system encourages collaboration more than competition, and stops extremists from dominating politics for too long.
I don’t know if you meant to do this but you actually just hit what the biggest cultural problem we as a species are facing, the current hegemonic hierarchy values competition in place of cooperation/collaboration.
It’s ideology versus reality. Here on Lemmy I’m sure you’ve seen plenty alienating potential allies over ideological purity. The problem with ideologies is that they are ideal but not real. Clinging to them dogmatically might give you a sense of superiority and insulation from blame in your own mind. But to everyone else you are still a big part of the problem. What is the value of an ideology if it cannot accomplish anything good? What good is ideological purity? Is useless. And yet many people still use it as a substitute for a personality.
My understanding is:
There were elections, no one paid any attention to them, the nazi party won a ton of seats and everyone went “WTF?”
Macron immediately called a snap election to give themselves a mulligan, did an all out media blitz to get people to pay attention, made a deal with the left wing where the centrists dropped out(they are unpopular), opening the door for the left wing to swoop in and save the day.
Kudos to him for a ballsy move to keep Nazis out of power.
The far-right won big in elections for the EU.
Macron called a snap election for the FRENCH legislature in the hopes of using “Far right is winning, SUPPORT THE NON-FAR-RIGHT” (implicitly, Macron’s centrists) to renew his mandate to rule.
However, the far-right won big in the first round of elections, sending everyone into a panic, since they were projected to get close to or an actual majority in the French legislature.
Macron and the Left then agreed that in races where both of their candidates were competitive, the weaker of the candidates in each of the races would drop out to bolster the other, because as much as they hate each other, they hate the far-right more.
