Will France follow Britain out of the EU?

I'm reading that LePen is rapidly gaining on Macron. 41%?

Interesting.

Emmanuel Macron’s campaign team bans Russian news outlets from events
Reuters, Thursday 27 April 2017

Russia has accused French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign team of discriminating against its media on Thursday, saying it had trampled on the freedom of the press by banning Russian news outlets from its events.

In Paris, a Macron spokesman confirmed that the Russian state-funded Sputnik news agency and RT TV channel had been barred from having media access to him, describing them as a “two-headed entity” which issued Russian state propaganda and fake news.

Macron, a pro-European Union ex-banker and centrist, is widely seen as the favourite to win the French presidency on 7 May by beating far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Macron has taken a hard line on EU sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis, whereas Le Pen, an admirer of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, is a eurosceptic who backs the lifting of sanctions and takes Russia’s side on Ukraine.

The Kremlin has been irritated by accusations from Macron’s camp that its campaign’s networks, databases and sites have come under attack from locations inside Russia, fuelling suspicions that Russiais trying to undermine Macron’s campaign in order to help Le Pen.

The Macron spokesman referred to the two news outlets’ “systematic desire to issue fake news and false information”.

“Spreading lies methodically and systematically – that’s a problem,” he said.

“If this creates problems with the Kremlin, it will be the subject of an open discussion in the event of the candidate (Macron) being elected,” the spokesman said.

Moscow has rejected allegations of meddling, and on Thursday Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dubbed “outrageous” the move by Macron’s team to refuse accreditation to Sputnik, RT and the Ruptly video agency last Sunday. [...]

The Macron spokesman gave no specific examples of Russian media spreading fake news. But a 4 February report by Sputnik quoted a pro-Putin centre-right French legislator as saying Macron was a puppet of US political and financial elites and that revelations about his private life would soon be made public.

The report appeared to play a part in Macron being forced on 7 February to deny rumours of an extra-marital gay relationship.

Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT, said on social media [...]: “So this is how gracelessly freedom of speech ends in a country which prides itself on its freedoms almost more than it prides itself on its Camembert and brie."

Thanks for bringing me up to date Oliv. Lets all hope common sense prevails and France keeps being France.

Macron says the EU will reform or deal with another major member's exit.

The end of an era for Europe.


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39766334

Gee. Where have I heard this before?

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/world/french-election-second-round-1.4090939

Aljazeera's take on the French election. An anti-corruption, anti-establishment populism is sweeping across the globe.

How will it play in France?

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/04/populism-french-elections-big-winner-170430214501651.html

I hope they'll float their guillotine over when they finish with it...

The TV debate tomorrow night will be decisive. She's older and far more experienced than him of course, and could blow him out of the water. But if he holds his own and manages to point at her contradictions and lies, he will survive.

Ii have just recently saw her speech at Oxford...she is quite good at dodging and charming ppl around almost giving the impression her ideas are reasonable. No wonder unsatisfied common ppl fall for her demagoguery. Nasty piece of work she is...

Yes, she's a good public speaker and debater, and a lot of what she says makes sense. She could still win, against arithmetics.

Was thinking about the attitudes of French and Americans through the big historic moments while reading this. Our first revolutions came so close together.

Looks like the first volley of our second revolutions might as well.

The picture used for this article features a man walking past defaced pictures of the two remaining presidential candidates with No Banker No Fascist branded across them.

Many French citizens say they won't vote for either.

The similarities between the mood in France about establishment politicians is remarkably like what ha just happened here.

Nobody thought Trump would win.

If anyone digs up any bankster scandal from Macron's past, I think France will welcome a blond establishment antidote to the presidency.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/03/frances-critical-election-happens-in-june-not-in-may/

Let's hope the French will be a bit smarter than the Americans this time.

I've never heard a Macron or LePen speech, only read narratives, so maybe you could tell me: With Macron a bankster political novice who claims he'll exit the EU without reform, does he really represent that much of an improvement over LePen?

Is she, in your opinion, the unrepentant racist she's portrayed to be?

She's really coming off marvelously in this piece.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/world/europe/marine-le-pen-france-election.html

Neither Macron nor Le Pen are for exiting the EU. DAs a rule, you shouldn't believe what you read in the anglophone press about France. Most of what they write is fabricated.

According to Danish and Swedish newspapers Le Pen wants to leave EU.
Macron wants more EU than we have already, but if EU does not reform a lot it will be Frexit.
Just want to let you know that also Scandinavian newspapers fabricate news.
I do not read the yellow press.

Officially, Le Pen wants to renegotiate EU rules, and if that doesn't work, would call a referendum on Frexit. She also wants to retain the Euro as an international trade currency, while using the Franc as a national currency.

That's the latest. I know it's a bit complicated. She's a complicated (and oft changing) person.

Thanks to both of you for local insight. Hard to trust any papers now. Everybody has an angle.

Most of times, you can trust the Guardian and the NYT to base their article on serious research and a decent understanding of the context, in their reporting about France as well as in their coverage of many other countries. I'm not saying they are without bias (who is?) but their international news journalists tend to do their homework.

I think Macron survived the debate. Le Pen was very aggressive but when having to describe what sort of France she wanted to see, it was all like lalah land.