Tag Archives: Guide

The Ultimate Guide to the 2017 French Elections – Part III

The first round of the French Presidential elections is due to be held in 17 days (on 23rd April), with the likely second round two weeks later on 7th May. The eleven presidential candidates yesterday took part in the final televised debate before the first round.

Weighing their performances remains fraught with difficulty and the key question remains whether the centre-left candidate Emmanuel Macron and National Front leader Marine Le Pen are still likely to make it to the second round.

This in-depth four-part Election Series examines all core elements of the upcoming presidential and legislative elections and takes a quantitative and qualitative approach.

In Part III, I tackle five questions, looking at past presidential elections where appropriate:

Q1: At this stage can we predict with any accuracy the eventual winner?

The media would suggest that we cannot and there is certainly scope for surprises. At the very least opinion polls could be under or over-estimating candidates’ chances. But if Macron and Le Pen make it to the second round, Macron looks set to be elected President based on opinion polls.

Q2: Are French presidential opinion polls reliable?

They accurately predicted the outcome of the 2012 and 2007 presidential elections and the eventual winner of the 2002 election. But opinion polls under-estimated support for Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round in 2002.

Q3: What are French opinion polls currently predicting?

Macron and Le Pen are neck and neck in the first round on about 25% but these polls do not account for undecided voters and turnout.

Q4: Do French regional elections tell us anything about candidates’ chances?

The December 2015 regional elections suggest that while Marine Le Pen will do well in the first round, she will struggle in the second round in the face of concerted political opposition.

Q5: What are the odds of a left-wing candidate becoming President?

While Mélenchon is likely to come a credible fourth, based on current opinion polls, neither him nor Socialist Party candidate Hamon are likely to get even close to making it to the second round.
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The Ultimate Guide to the 2017 French Elections – Part II

The first round of the French Presidential elections is due to be held in 25 days (on 23rd April), with the likely second round two weeks later on 7th May. In many ways this is proving to be a unique election campaign but the centre-left Emmanuel Macron still comfortably leads National Front candidate Marine Le Pen in second round polls.

This in-depth four-part Election Series examines all core elements of the upcoming presidential and legislative elections and takes a quantitative and qualitative approach. In Part II, I tackle seven questions, looking at past presidential elections where appropriate:

Q1: Who are the presidential candidates?

Eleven candidates, spanning the breadth of the political spectrum, will officially contest the first round in a bid to capture the 46 million or so votes up for grabs. However, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen remain comfortably ahead in the polls on around 25%.

Q2: What are their relative strengths and weaknesses?

The recent televised debate between the top five candidates was high calibre, in my view, and the front-runners have in recent months shown clear strengths…but also weaknesses.

Q3: What are the odds of a candidate winning an absolute majority in the first round?

No candidate has ever obtained more than 50% of the popular vote in the first round. This time looks no different and a second round is a near certainty based on latest polls.

Q4: Does the number of sponsors have a bearing on first round results?

The relationship is tenuous but does suggest that Le Pen will fail to win the presidency.

Q5: Does the number of candidates have a bearing on first round results?

The large number of candidates points to the winner and runner-up of the first round winning only just over half of the votes, broadly in line with recent opinion polls.

Q6: Does the first round result have a bearing on the outcome of the second round?

Precedent suggests that a small margin of victory in the first round makes the second round outcome harder to predict. This year’s election could prove a break with the past.

Q7: Does it matter who came third or fourth in the first round?

It has on a few occasions but assuming that Fillon comes third and the left-wing candidates fourth and fifth, polls point to a convincing Macron win versus le Pen in the second round.

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The Ultimate Guide to the 2017 French Elections – Part I

The first round of the French Presidential elections is due to be held in 47 days, with the likely second round two weeks later. There has already been much drama in a presidential campaign that has caught the world’s imagination.

The two-round election for the 577 deputies of the lower house of parliament on 11th and 18th June, which has so far received little attention, will complete the political picture in France.

There are currently eighteen presidential candidates spanning the breadth of the political spectrum, from the far-left to the far-right. Political jostling is in full swing with candidates forming alliances in a bid to capture the 46 million or so votes up for grabs in round one.

The National Front’s Marine Le Pen, currently ahead in the polls for the first round on around 27%, is looking to go one step further than her father Jean-Marie Le Pen and become the first ever French female president. She is currently under investigation for misappropriation of EU funds and publication of violent images.

The centre-left candidate Emmanuel Macron, aged 39, is second in the polls on around 25%. He is vying to become the first centrist president since Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in 1974, the first independent candidate to become France’s head of state and the youngest ever President under the Fifth Republic.

Republican candidate François Fillon, who comfortably won the party primaries, is third in the polls on around 20% despite the probability that he will face formal charges on 15th March of misappropriation of parliamentary funds.

President de Gaulle, in a nod to the heterogeneity of the French electorate, famously asked how it was possible to govern a country where 258 varieties of cheese exist[1]. This granular political landscape makes it that much harder to predict with any certainty the successor to incumbent President François Hollande who has opted not to run for a second term.

This in-depth four-part Election Series will examine all core elements of the upcoming presidential and legislative elections and take both a quantitative and qualitative approach.

The material, organised in easy-to-access questions and answers, will ultimately try to answer the key question of who will be President and Prime Minister and how this will impact France, Europe and financial markets. The British decision to leave the EU and US presidential elections have fuelled the notion that anything is possible.

In Part I, I examine the importance of French presidential and legislative elections, their mechanics and timelines and the implications of a potentially high voter turnout. Read more

What to expect in 2016 – same, same, but worse

Trading on Fear

It is clear that markets so far this year are trading on sentiment, more specifically fear, with hard-data playing second fiddle. Or more accurately, price action suggests that markets are focusing on disappointing December numbers (e.g. US ISM) or even reasonably uneventful data (Chinese manufacturing PMI) and ignoring strong data such as U.S non-farm payrolls, Chinese services PMI and exports (see Figure 1).  The hit-and-miss approach of Chinese policy-makers to stabilise equity markets (and ultimately growth) have done little to restore confidence. I nevertheless flag in Figure 37 some of the key data and events to focus on this year. Read more