As much as one might think all of Europe is anti-Trump.....there is some shockers out there. It came up this weekend that with the recent trip of Trump to France....six out of ten French folks were positive about the invitation....as reported by BFM-TV.
The polling folks for this even split this up among the four top candidates for President....with only the far-left voters being negative about the visit (oddly....it was only 56-percent against Trump....the rest of those voters were neutral or for the visit).
Why? This is a debatable discussion.
If you watch France-24 (the public network in English for all of Europe)....it's been mostly a negative view of Trump since spring of 2016....probably more so since January of 2017. But then, a lot of the French public have the option of watching public TV or private TV news. And on commercial French news....it's a different story.
My suspicion is that it's been a fairly intensive year on the political scale for most French....with bold slams on various parties and candidates. I think at least fifty-percent of society are a bit negative about TV news coverage and the 'cheerleading' that they've seen come from journalists. So maybe in some ways....they treat Trump with a more open view than Germans would.
The other curious piece to this is that as much as you can say about President Macron of France....he is primarily a business man-turned-executive-turned political figure. He's been an insider to the bankers, and probably has more of a interest in the commercial side of France than the political side.
My gut-feeling is that Macron will end up trying to out-play Chancellor Merkel over the next four years....both in EU-affairs, and in trade. To achieve this....Macron will have to play at the big table with trade agreements with the US, and probably have an active hand in the final BREXIT deal....forcing or dealing a compromise that pushes the Merkel-led EU into a solution.
The interesting thing about this trend is that across France.....which I suggest that of all European countries....it's more like the US than any other (even the UK).....people have an open view. Once you leave metropolitan areas in France....it reminds you a great deal of the heartland of the US.
So, in the world of political poker, I would suggest that Macron has sat down at the table and will be playing a fairly robust game of poker, and that Trump might find him to be a pretty decent deal-maker.
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