A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.
As the first round of the French presidential election came to a close on Sunday, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron—whom Breitbart characterized as a “globalist former Rothschild investment banker”—advanced toward a runoff election.
Many conservative media outlets celebrated the success of the far-right, Trump-supporting Le Pen. “Populism Storms Into French Runoff,” a LifeZette headline proclaimed. Hers, it claimed, was “a feat that just months ago was deemed laughable and entirely impossible by international global elites.” Like other commentators, Rush Limbaugh explained the results in relationship to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, observing, “[Y]ou’re gonna be amazed at the political coalitions that have sprung up in France that, in many ways, mirror exactly what’s happening in the United States.”
In his FoxNews.com column, John Moody made the comparison to Trump even more explicit, arguing that Le Pen had a chance to overcome the second-round polls (which currently suggest that she’ll fare poorly). “Le Pen supporters, like those of Trump, have demonstrated a loyalty and enthusiasm that none of the other candidates can claim,” Moody wrote, before proposing that she could pull off an “even bigger surprise than the Tweeter in Chief.”
Heat Street, meanwhile, found another way to drum up support for Le Pen, running an article titled, “Le Pen’s Secret Weapon: The Gorgeous Millennial Niece Who Renounces Liberalism.” It wrote, “At 27-years-old, Marion Marechal-Le Pen is the second-most popular right wing politician in France. She ardently wants to save her country for the people who were there first; i.e. France for the French.” Fox News also discussed how the leading candidates’ families had contributed to their “success,” though it focused primarily on Macron’s marriage to his much older former teacher, and Le Pen’s fraught relationship to her controversial father.
Not all conservative outlets were in the tank for Le Pen. A National Review headline, for example, read, “French Election: American Conservatives Should Support Macron.” In that article, Tom Rogan evaluated the candidates’ respective policy stances, ultimately concluding:
This isn’t a complex choice. Neither Le Pen nor Macron is a true conservative, but the latter is far closer to conservatism than the former is. Without Lafayette and France, the United States would probably have died in its infancy. Our close ally deserve [sic] better than Le Pen.
Notably, though, Rogan didn’t speak for the site as a whole. Another National Review article insisted that Macron’s positions on immigration and “integrating France’s Muslim minority” still leave much to be desired. It suggested that even if Macron triumphs, things may go differently in the country’s next presidential election.
Conservatives also discussed frustrated responses from the French left. One Breitbart headline read, “Lefty French Mayor Calls Residents ‘A***holes’, Quits After His Town Votes for Le Pen.” And Fox News’ website spotlighted riots supposedly led by “left-wing protesters [who] said they were angry at the first-round results.”
On social media, posts about Sean Hannity’s response to accusations of harassment spread widely from conservative Facebook pages:
