Truly sad/funny the way the Putinists , Trumpists and assorted rag tag collection of right wingers get all het up about these sorts of results in Europe.
They were European elections , often used as protest votes .
In France and Germany especially.
So what happened ?
In France RA got 30% of the vote , and that is after cleaning up their act and moving so far towards the centre , that they are heading for Tealdom .
The AFD racked up almost 15% .
In Europe overall , the vote stayed about the same.
Usually in elections that people care about, the vote for these types of parties drops about 30%.
Also, keep in mind , the assembly in France is not proportional representation .
Guess how many seats you win in single electorates when you have about 30% of the votes and most of the rest think you are dog poo.
A hint , not many.
Macron called for these elections , knowing that RA cant win , and even if they do , he gives them the prime ministers post , and they have choice , move even further towards the centre and govern well , everyone a winner , or get slaughtered at the next election .
When they lose this election, and that is most likely , their whining loses a lot of its force.
As president , Macron can pretty much keep the status quo , at worst for him .
He doesn't need to care about re-election .
My bet , we may well see a more leftist Prime Minister rather than RA anyway.
In Germany , the AFD goes up and down , but the government is either centre left or centre right .
Now , on top of that , even though not in the EU , geographically European UK is just about to vote in a Labour Party government in a landslide.
As long as Trump doesn't make it , the world is getting safer.
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