Will 2017 Be Like 2016?

For John, BLUF:  Mr Trump may represent an international phenomenon.  Look at the Philippines, South Korea, Hong Kong, Brexit and now France.  Maybe it is caused by Global Warming.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Incredible Disconnect of French Presidential Candidates

The author is Mr Bill Wirtz, writing for the Foundation for Economic Education.  Mr Wirtz is studying law at the University of Lorraine in Nancy.

If you want to see where Nancy is, this map shows you.  Back in the day (late 1960s), when I was in the Air Force and stationed at Bitburg Air Base, in Germany, we would use Nancy as a turn point as we flew to (and back from) Wheelus Air Base, outside of Tripoli, Libya.  For position reporting purposes, to the French Air Traffic Control people, we would pronounce it as Non See.

 

 

But, to the article, here is the lede:

In France, it's countdown to the 23rd of April 2017, election day in the République.  The French Republican party♠ is currently running its primary campaign,  in which two candidates have shown that the disconnect many voters perceive in the political class is incognizably true.

And here is one of the candidates showing how out of touch he is (hint, the cost of a pain au chocolat is normally between one and one and a half Euros):

When Republican presidential candidate Jean-François Copé was asked on the radio station Europe 1 how much a pain au chocolat costs, his estimate lay between 10 and 15 euro cents.  What would supposedly spark rapid laughter turned out to become a major talking point in the entire country.  By French standards, this oops-situation overshadowed Gary Johnson's Aleppo-moment by a long shot.  But Copé did not only have to deal with malice – indeed, his gross underestimate of the price of a simple piece of pastry showed his disconnect with ordinary people.

And on to the other candidate for the French Republican Party:

You cannot intend to be a man of the people yet support every indication that you're nothing but an overpaid bureaucrat who has to do neither his own driving, cleaning, laundry, or grocery shopping, and that for the last 30 years.  Copé's rival Alain Juppé, current front-runner in the Republican primary and current favorite to win the general election, beautifully illustrated this last weekend.

In an interview on the French TV channel France 3, Juppé illustrated his thoughts on some candidates' basic income proposal of some candidates by saying,

“Would a basic income really apply to everyone? Would everyone get it, from Miss Bettencourt [richest women in the world] to the cashier at Prisunic [supermarket chain]?”

Nothing potentially controversial there, until you notice that the last branch of the supermarket chain Prisunic closed down in 2002.

Of course there is always National Front candidate Marine Le Pen.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The author calls it the French Republican Party, but it is known in France as the Union for a Popular Movement.