He was the peace candidate all right, except for his resolute unwillingness to implement the Minsk 2 accords. And the saber rattling about the Budapest memorandum (source). Or the suggestions about pursuing nuclear weapons (source)
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I have seen two speculations – but who knows what the truth is in a world in which our Betters lie continuously:
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Zelensky was a typical politician, lying through his teeth. He knew the bulk of the Ukrainian people wanted an end to the long civil war against Russian-speaking Ukrainians – so he said what the voters wanted to hear, without any intention of ever delivering on that promise.
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Zelensky was a political outsider (albeit one who had benefitted financially from his relationships with wealthy powerful Ukrainian oligarchs). He sincerely wanted an end to the civil war. But once elected, some of the hard-line anti-Russian elements in the Ukraine successfully threatened him & his family unless he got with the NATO program.
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In a poll conducted by Ipsos-Sopra Steria for several French media outlets, in a two-way contest Le Pen outpolled Macron in all age demographics below age 60. Further, Le Pen beat Macron by around two to one in respondents who identified as blue collar.
The run-off for the French presidential contest will be held on 2022-04-24.
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April 19 rolling IPSOS poll: the split is less dramatic than in 2017. Could she make up the difference? Le Pen is trending down while Macron is trending up. (source)
Of course, there is a debate between now and Sunday and she might do better than expected, or Macron could drop the ball in some creative manner. Incidentally, the debate is scheduled for Wednesday, 4/20 
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An interesting wrinkle is the decision by the unelected rulers of Europe in the EU to order a halt to oil purchases from Russia – but not until after the French election, so as not so queer the pitch for Macron.
The EU’s decision is likely to cause short term chaos with supply disruptions and price jumps once it goes into effect. But it could also trigger an immediate wave of anti-Macron French nationalism – Just who do those EU employees in Brussels think they are? This might impact the French presidential election after all.
Time will tell!
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Here is the complete presidential debate between Emmanuel Macron and Marine le Pen, held on 2022-04-20.
Version originale:
Doublée en anglais
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Well, France appears to have fair elections.
It leaves one to wonder what the result would look like with a fair press. Would the voters of France give Le Pen a go ?
In the US . A fair press would at least inform the public of our corrupt election process.
Alas, if only.
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The Le Monde article is quite interesting. If I understand it and if I am doing the arithmetic correctly (no guarantees on either), France has 44.6 Million eligible voters, of whom an eye-popping 35.1 Million chose to vote – 79%, 4 out of 5 went to the polls.
Macron got 18.8 Million votes – the affirmative votes of only 42% of French citizens eligible to vote. The Tyranny of the Minority rears its ugly head again!
However, Macron is officially shown as having got 59% support. The difference between the actual 42% and the official 59% comes from:
(1) ignoring the 9.5 Million French citizens who could not raise the enthusiasm to vote for either of the Final Two candidates, and
(2) ignoring the 3.0 Million who were sufficiently dissatisfied by both candidates to go to the polls and leave their vote blank or spoil their ballot.
That 12.5 Million is not far short of the 13.3 Million who voted for LePen.
If we wanted to have democracy, one of the first acts would have to be to recognize non-votes or spoiled votes as a vote for “None Of The Above”. Second act would be that if the highest-placed candidate fails to get the affirmative votes of at least 50% of the eligible voters, the election would be ruled to be void and the elective office would be filled by a person randomly chosen from the citizen body. Now that would be true representative democracy!
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