Comments on: France reflects general disillusion with mainstream political parties and the EU http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2007/04/13/france-reflects-general-disillusion-with-mainstream-political-parties-and-the-eu/ Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Wokingham Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:33:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Neil Craig http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2007/04/13/france-reflects-general-disillusion-with-mainstream-political-parties-and-the-eu/#comment-1646 Neil Craig Fri, 13 Apr 2007 14:57:16 +0000 http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/?p=202#comment-1646 I'm not sure there is an incentive for the French to vote for extremes it may just be that what you consider extremes have more of the confidence of the left & right sections respectively - ie that they are just voting as they wish. When Le Pen got into the final as the standard bearer of the right, they lost because the moderate right mostly prefered to see the left candidate in. This is thus actually less likely to produce an extreme result than British politics where the FTPT system ties in rightest voters to whoever the Tory leader is & the left into Labour's standard bearer. I’m not sure there is an incentive for the French to vote for extremes it may just be that what you consider extremes have more of the confidence of the left & right sections respectively - ie that they are just voting as they wish. When Le Pen got into the final as the standard bearer of the right, they lost because the moderate right mostly prefered to see the left candidate in.

This is thus actually less likely to produce an extreme result than British politics where the FTPT system ties in rightest voters to whoever the Tory leader is & the left into Labour’s standard bearer.

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