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00:00Well, we have been talking a lot on France 24 about the upcoming legislative election here in France.
00:05The first round, of course, is this Sunday, June 30th.
00:08And I'm going to dive a little bit deeper into that with our French politics editor,
00:10Mark Perlman, who joins me on the set.
00:12Hi, Mark.
00:13We were saying earlier that the far right is seeming, sounding very confident going into this vote.
00:18Are they right to be?
00:20According to the latest polls, they are absolutely right to be confident.
00:24They've said, they've repeated, we need an absolute majority in the National Assembly
00:30to be able to really push through our program.
00:34And the latest polls we're seeing, the images right now, shows for the first time
00:40that they would indeed get this absolute majority in the National Assembly.
00:45The magic number is 289.
00:48Those are the number of seats you need to get an absolute majority.
00:51So, if you look at this, the National Rally is polling between 230 and 270.
00:57However, a small key group is the alliance between the president of the Conservative Party,
01:04Éric Ciotti, who decided to leave, essentially, the party with some allies.
01:08And there, the alliance gives them 20 to 35 seats.
01:12So, if you do the math, this means that the National Rally and its allies in Parliament
01:19could indeed reach this absolute majority.
01:22This is only a poll.
01:23You see that the number of projected seats is varying quite a lot because those are 577 races.
01:31It's very difficult because it's a two-round election with a majority system.
01:36So, it's very, very difficult to project.
01:39But it does show that just after the European election that prompted Emmanuel Macron to
01:46call for the snap election, they still have the momentum.
01:50And they're certainly hoping that this will allow them to win round one and be in poll
01:57position for round two and eventually get Jordan Bardella to Matignon, where the prime
02:03minister works.
02:04Indeed.
02:05So, let's say that the far-right leader, Jordan Bardella, becomes the prime minister.
02:09Emmanuel Macron, for the moment, is still the French president of his centrist party.
02:13They call it a cohabitation here.
02:15If that were to happen, what would that look like?
02:17How would that work?
02:18Well, we've had this before three times already.
02:22And it's obviously a difficult situation because you have a president who was elected who then
02:29lost an election and is now with his key opponent.
02:35And they have to deal together.
02:38The way this works in France is that the prime minister deals mostly with domestic issues.
02:43The president deals with foreign affairs and defense.
02:48This morning, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the national rally, said that, well, you know,
02:55being the chief of the army is essentially an honorific position, meaning that the prime
03:00minister also has his stay.
03:03And she took the example of the possibility raised by Emmanuel Macron of sending ground
03:08troops to Ukraine.
03:09She said that through his power over the purse, essentially the budget, the prime minister
03:14could decide that there won't be money to send troops to Ukraine.
03:19And so this is clearly already an opening salvo to show Emmanuel Macron that he will
03:25not be able to have a free hand on foreign affairs, on defense affairs, if Jordan Bardella
03:30is elected prime minister.
03:32So obviously, this could be very, very difficult.
03:36Just for the record, every time there has been a cohabitation and then eventually an
03:42election, the prime minister lost that election.
03:46Obviously, this won't happen this time around because Emmanuel Macron will not be able to
03:50run for another mandate.
03:53But maybe after deciding to call the snap election, he's feeling that eventually in
03:592027, when there'll be the next presidential election, having used or maybe abused his
04:08position as president and really dent the national rally, he might be able to say, OK,
04:15I'm handing the baton to someone from my camp, or at least not from the far right.
04:20But this is clearly science fiction.
04:22Right now, the next election is on Sunday, round one.
04:25You can expect one thing, much more turnout than in the previous legislative elections
04:30and than in the European election just a few weeks ago.