A while back this blog predicted that the French people will decide to ‘hold on to Nurse’ in the form of Emmanuel Macron and this is looking likely to be the case. The French voters look as if they are going to decide to put their trust in the Establishment rather than an outsider. This is probably on the grounds that an outsider may be more likely to be obstructed by the French civil service and government class, whereas a member of the Establishment may find their path smoother and may get more things done. I think that those who think this are mistaken, but I can see how individual voters may think that way.

But, whoever wins the French Presidential election today is going to be inheriting a mess. The new president will first and foremost inherit a heavily regulated economy where the bureaucracy can inhibit business start ups. France, especially its political class, is heavily dominated by those with pro-European Union tendencies. This is an attitude that appears to be shared by a large number of French people. Even though membership of the EU is hurting French citizens, they don’t seem to have the same animus about the EU as is found in for example the United Kingdom. This feeling that the EU is better than any alternative may come from France’s experience of conflict with other European nations and the trauma of invasion, something that the country went through on three occasions from the late 19^th century to the mid 20^th.

The new president, whoever they may be, is also going to inherit a mess of social problems. They will have to deal with problems caused by an overarching and expensive welfare state which perversely is often feeding and housing a great many of the Muslims who want to destroy France. French welfare payments are ensuring that too many Muslim men can sit around in their pyjamas reading the Koran and imbibing a continual and concentrated message that they should kill French people. The French government is facing violence on the streets of many French cities, violence that is being committed by Muslims and their Leftist allies whose targets are the police and the French citizen.

The situation in France with regards security is truly dire and can only get worse as time goes by. That will especially be the case once the French patriots or the Identitarians start to feel that they should ‘tool up’ to a similar level as the Muslims and Leftists have done. This is something I feel that is quite likely to happen should the security forces fail to ensure security or if the police are defeated in a major street battle and consequently look weak and unable to do their job. Some of the accounts coming out of France, such as this report from the independent video journalist Lauren Southern, are truly shocking. She said that even going out for breakfast at a roadside café you are aware of the problems as heavily armed troops patrol the streets of Paris.

Outside observers of what is going on in France are both shocked and saddened. It looks very much as if France, or significant parts of it are going to erupt into a bloody political, religious and ethnic civil war. Marine Le Pen, if she wins, may not be able to overcome the inertia of the Establishment in the Civil Service etc. to get effective policies to deal with the mounting problems quickly enough. Also she will be fighting the French Trade Unions who are often very much to the Left and have an enormous amount of power when compared to Trade Unions in the UK and the USA. If Macron wins then his policies which amount to cleaving to the EU, keeping the political Establishment happy and engaging in even more Islamopandering, are also doomed to disaster. Those French voters who went for Macron because of distaste for Le Pen are going to find themselves feeling betrayed, especially if they voted for Macron because they thought as a ‘moderate’ he was the least worst choice. There are two paths that the French voters can go down and neither of them will deliver a peaceful and effective resolution to the current problems that France suffers from.

Whoever wins the French presidential election may fail to deal with the problems effectively or in a timely manner or may make them worse. The Elysée Palace will become a poisoned chalice for whoever occupies it at this present time. Neither of the candidates are a powerful and well respected ‘De Gaulle’ character who can unite France and I don’t see anyone on the horizon who can fit that description. France is in very grave trouble and the change of President is more than likely not going to end France’s troubles.