Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

That’s surprising only if you consider the Tories as being economically liberal. They are conservative in the sense that they look after the interests of the old aristocracy and a coalition of the rich. Their policies are intended to benefit a specific subset of the population. Their taxes (as well as things like the universal credit cuts) are perfectly aligned with that ideology.

They don’t have a problem with the concept of taxation, just taxation of the powerful.

If Le Pen or Zemmour get through to the second round then I imagine Macron will win, as voters unite to avoid them winning, much as happened in the previous elections.

Although I guess Le Pen and Zemmour might split each others vote, preventing them from reaching the second round.

The far right failing to reach the second would really be great! Even if I cannot vote, but it would send a signal so.

It's always true that the election system itself plays a big role in how/what candidates get elected. It's also true that the US electoral structure was a huge factor in Biden or Trump's election. Change the structure of the primary or main election, get different results.

That notwithstanding, it's also true that elements of Trump or Bidens' success might translate.

In any case, the "The whole "socially progressive, economically middle of the road" political coalition that would win every election on HN." is arguably the most successful coalition in western (and many non western) democracies for decades.

Depending on vantage, political classifications like "progressive" and "middle of the road" are relative, and we don't usually agree on the bounds. But if

If you compare changes though, these orientations have been politically powerful for decades. ...

Normative beliefs around gay rights, minority rights, secularism, women's rights and such have been marching forward, call it progressing. Circa 2005, gay marriage was fringe and ilegal almost everywhere. Obama, Clinton & other prominent US democrats occasionally even had to pretend to be against gay marriage, for elections. Within Meanwhile, the economic middle-ground is approximately in exactly the same place as it was in the 90s. This might be breaking down ATM, but very generally, the conservative position from the 80s became the middle ground. Barriers to trade, corporate shields, tax structures and such haven't changed much since that shift.

> "En Marche" ("Let's Go") that took over France in a storm (...) with very few previously known political figures in its ranks

"En marche" is not "Let's go" ("allons-y") but "March on", a military reference. They had key figures in the previous government, for example Macron who was ministry of economy and supervised the destruction of working law protections (2016 reforms) for the "socialist" (huge quotation marks) government.

His first prime Manuel Valls minister was also part of the previous government, where he supervised the crushing of popular uprising as ministry of interior. They both represent the national-capitalist turn/wing of the "socialist" party that emerged in the 80/90's. They both have countless blood on their hands, and have betrayed all their campaign promises. For example, Macron campaigned against Le Pen's racism, then passed racist laws doubling retention times (90 days) for undocumented people, pressured against rescuing the Aquarius...

It's also important to note that if they appear to come out of nowhere, they are not emerging challengers. They have been chosen by the oligarchy (media and land/industry owner establishment) to represent their interests, and have been heavily promoted across private/public media as an "alternative" to the politics we knew. As you could guess, this "alternative" was always more of the same: less public services, more cops/prisons, less taxes for the rich, more corruption in the heart of government.

> The whole thing looked like doing management rather than politics

That's politics, too. Just very reactionary, anti-humane politics that destroy people's lives and autonomy in the name of micro-managed stats. You may be interested to know that historically, having a strong government managing society without "politics" (huge quotation marks, everything is political) is Mussolini's historic definition of fascism:

> "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."

PS: "Neither left nor right" is also a popular fascist meme.("third position"). In France, it's still represented by famous holocaust-denier Alain Soral ("working Reft, traditional values Right") or Troisième Voie (the neofascist militias who were dissolved after murdering Clément Méric). Hitler was also famously "neither left nor right", and actively campaigned against existing parties, claiming the plurality was a form of chaos that ruined efficiency. He historically managed to convince some workers that he was going to be their defender against the bosses, while at the same time taking considerable funds/support from the German industry owners who he convinced he would be their defender against "communism".