Hooray — The French Anti-Semites Lost

By Mademoiselle Kubelik

We cats may have been right about French President Emmanuel "Dark Manny" Macron after all. Last month, we speculated that his big gamble in calling for a snap election would pay off in the end. And it appears that it has: In today's runoff, the far right slid to third place, after polls and pundits confidently predicted a big win for them. C'est dommage, mes amis! Perennial candidate Marine Le Pen is fast becoming the Harold Stassen of French politics.

This election comes right on the heels of Labour's enormous victory in the UK on Thursday. Although the prognosticators said Britons were bored and uninspired, it seems that, like the French, more than enough of them turned out to show Rishi Sunak the door. So Keir Starmer becomes the latest Prime Minister to be supervised by Larry the Cat.

What are the takeaways from these two elections? Maybe it's that some (not all, but a lot) of the polls and pundits are wrong. (And maybe the TV gasbags should shut their mouths about the news until it actually happens.) Or perhaps it's that people use surveys, focus groups and first rounds of voting to blow off steam, but when the rubber meets the road — when they're in that polling place, marking that final ballot — they reject far-right fascism, Trumpism, and Putinism. We cats PURR.