French to cast protest vote in presidential election: Pundit

French people who are already annoyed with their country's rulers and the European Union’s interference in France’s decision-making would cast a "protest vote" in the presidential election scheduled for April 23, 2017, says Jim W. Dean, managing editor and columnist of the Veterans Today from Atlanta.

“We would call it a protest vote,” because people are tired of being ignored by elites who do not care about ordinary citizens wishes and needs, Dean told Press TV on Friday night.

The commentator described this round of French presidential election as the “trend call” which would send a message that the elites have to listen to the people.

“They (elites) are completely ignoring nationalism like that’s a dirty word that people shouldn’t have any individual pride in their specific countries and their cultures,” he added.

France's incumbent President Francois Hollande has declared he would not seek reelection. The upcoming presidential vote is highly expected to head into a runoff, with Marine Le Pen of the National Front, who has millions of supporters, unlikely to be able to win the election in the first round.

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According to the analyst, there are "top-down people", who won’t let countries like France rule the future of the European Union; so, they want to interfere in France’s elections.

He predicted that some foreign players would try to derail the election process in France by raising issues like financial scandals right near voting season in the European country.

“Now we see the EU with Le Pen holding these criminal cases to spring just before election time that would be called interfering in the election process,” he argued, adding that very powerful people in France and also the EU are trying to undermine Le Pen, because they do not want anybody who promotes "Frexit" from the EU.

If Le Pen’s Party loses the election, her supporters would find out that they cannot rule the country on ideology alone, he pointed out.

“The problem with these nationalist groups is they tend to have a very hardcore base and they tend to be weak when it comes to forming coalitions because the secret for victory in European politics is you have to be able to form coalition governments and We haven’t seen much in terms of Le Pen to trying to do that,” he explained.  

Elsewhere, Dean pointed to pressure on French Republican candidate Francois Fillon to step down because of embezzlement charges, saying that, this is a very disrupting situation that happened and the thing was planned and orchestrated by outside forces including people outside political realm.

Meanwhile, Milad Jokar, a political analyst of the Institute of Prospective and Security in Europe from Caen, France, said there are a lot of people who are dissatisfied with economic, political and social difficulties; so many people just want some change regardless of what the plan is.

French people are tired of scandals; so, there are a lot of people who may not go to vote, he said.

“The lower the turnout is, the better it is for Marine Le Pen, because she has strong bases and they are going to vote anyway,” the analyst argued.

However, Marine Le Pen would most probably make it for the second round, but people unite behind the leader that opposes the national France, Jokar is noted.

Le Pen is getting more and more support but it is not secured that she would win the support of half of the population in the upcoming presidential election, he added.

“Even if [Le Pen] does not win, it would still be a big push for populism;” however, she talks a lot about problems and does not have any program for the future of France.

Opinion polls show Le Pen may proceed to a runoff in the presidential election but will be easily crushed by other candidates like pro-EU Emmanuel Macron in the runoff.

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