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00:00The French far-right made unprecedented gains after the first round of voting in snap parliamentary
00:07elections, with the national rally now poised to be the dominant force in the National Assembly,
00:13though it's expected to fall short of winning a majority of the 577 seats.
00:19According to projections by Ipsos Talent, the party and its allies won over 33% of votes,
00:26with the left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front, coming in second with 28%,
00:31President Emmanuel Macron's Together coalition trailing in third place with 20%,
00:36and the Republicans party and other unaffiliated right-wing candidates
00:41receiving 10% of the votes, while unaffiliated centrist candidates scored 1.8%.
00:47Well, now we can bring in Clovis Casali from the National Rally headquarters. Clovis,
00:57the party then apparently just falling short of an absolute majority. We're not quite sure,
01:02maybe they will make it significant gains nonetheless. What's the mood there?
01:11Well, the heavyweights of the party, including Marine Le Pen,
01:15will be coming here at the headquarters later this morning for a special meeting. Of course,
01:20they'll be carefully looking at results, seeing what to do in which constituency here in France,
01:26seeing if they are really going to get into power, and it does seem very likely they are at the gates
01:34of power. It seems they will get a strong majority, maybe not an outright majority,
01:39but a majority of seats in Parliament, and then it will be all about alliances.
01:45They finished first in many constituencies. They've already got around 40 MPs elected
01:52straightaway in the first round of the parliamentary elections, including
01:57their historic leader, Marine Le Pen. Marine Le Pen in the Pas-de-Calais area in northern France,
02:04who said in her victory speech that the centrist bloc of Emmanuel Macron has disappeared following
02:13these results. It's the end of Macron for her, and she's calling for national unity.
02:19She's calling basically for the French people to turn up in big numbers on Sunday in order
02:25to give the national rally, the French far-right party, an outright majority to make sure that the
02:32French far-right is the dominant force, gets Jardin Bardella elected as Prime Minister,
02:39and for her party to be able to pass laws freely in Parliament. Of course, we'll have to see
02:45what result they get on Sunday, but that's the idea for the national rally.
02:50Call for national unity behind them as they describe themselves as the only real patriots
02:57in France. Right, Clovis, and as you mentioned, they're hoping to get a
03:02majority, but Jardin Bardella has said that he would not want to govern if the national rally
03:08doesn't make the needed amount of seats for that majority. What can we expect then to happen?
03:19Well, that's where it does get a bit technical. Remember, Eric Ciotti, the president of the
03:25mainstream, if you will, conservative party Les RĂ©publicains, decided to form an alliance during
03:30the campaign with the national rally. But not all of the LR Les RĂ©publicains MPs or candidates
03:38decided to join him in that enterprise. But what will they do now? If some get elected from this
03:46conservative party Les RĂ©publicains, will they decide in Parliament to join Jardin Bardella?
03:50Will they decide to join forces and therefore bring in numbers that would help the national
03:58rally, the French far right, get an outright majority in Parliament? Those Les RĂ©publicains
04:04seem to be the only potential allies for the French far right. Because take the left-wing,
04:10they won't join the far right. The left-wing parties, France Unbowed, the Socialists, the Greens,
04:16the Communists, the New Popular Front, in other words, have already said, no way, we will never
04:22join the national rally, of course. Furthermore, they are deciding in the three-way run-off you
04:29were mentioning, to call for any candidate who is standing against the national rally. No vote
04:35should go to the national rally. That is actually the same message sent yesterday by Prime Minister
04:40Gabriel Attal, no vote should go to the national rally. In other words, this Republican front
04:47that has been happening for years here in France has been revived in some ways. In other words,
04:54parties trying to prevent the national rally, the French far right, from getting into government.
04:59All right, thank you very much for that update from national rally headquarters.
05:06Let's get some more analysis now. We can bring in Dr Anna McKeever, who is a political scientist
05:11and lecturer in political science at the University of West Scotland. Dr McKeever,
05:18thank you very much for joining us. We've been talking a lot about the rise of the far right and
05:23the national rally, and as it was previously known, the National Front has been steadily
05:28earning a higher share of votes in French elections over the past couple of decades.
05:33Do you think that this result that we've seen on Sunday was inevitable?
05:37Thank you for having me. So yes, indeed, one outcome we can take from this election is that
05:43we cannot discount national rally. It's no longer, you know, kind of shameful decision
05:50to vote for such party as we see according to the polls where they scored 33.4%. And they got,
05:57you know, as the first candidate in at least 270 constituencies. So I wouldn't say that it hasn't
06:05been unprecedented in terms of them getting more votes, but it is definitely unprecedented
06:11in terms of the share of the increase of such votes, because in 2022 legislative elections,
06:17their score was 18.7% and they got about four millions of votes in legislative elections.
06:25And in this first round, as we've seen yesterday, they increased their share,
06:30they almost doubled it to 33 or just over 33%. Plus, if we translate it in a number of actual,
06:37you know, people who voted for them, it's almost 12 million of French people. So on one hand,
06:43on the one hand, yes, indeed, this is not a surprise that they've managed to get more seats,
06:50sorry, more votes from the French people. But the whole kind of share of this support
06:58is unprecedented. And it grew very, very fast. All right, Anna Makeeva, do stay with us. Don't
07:06go away. I just want to cross to our journalist who's on the ground at the new Popular Front
07:12headquarters, Liza Kamenov, the new Popular Front then gaining, coming in at second place with,
07:19in terms of share of the votes. Liza, what is the mood like where you are?
07:25Well, it's a quiet morning here at the headquarters of France Unbowed. But we can say that here last
07:34night, France Unbowed's Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon was among the first leaders of the left-wing parties
07:41to speak after the results, after the new Popular Front gained just over 28% of the vote. And the
07:48mood was one of excitement and determination. Now, they are, of course, aware that despite
07:54being just five points behind the national rally, they are still confident that they can close this
08:01gap between them and the far right. Yesterday, Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon was rallying up more voters
08:08saying, not one voice more, not one vote more for the national rally. Let's aim for an absolute
08:16majority for the new Popular Front. Those were his words last night. And of course, his speech was
08:21then followed by reactions of the other party members of the new Popular Front, notably the
08:28Greens, Marine Tendelier, the Socialists, Olivier Faure, and Social Democrats, Raphael Glucksmann,
08:35who also said that this time, the second round of the election, it's not an election,
08:39it's a referendum. It's a clear yes or no to the extreme right. So they are aiming to galvanise as
08:46many people as possible to help catch up with the national rally. Their aim is very clear,
08:52to block the far right from power. And their determination will carry it through this week.
09:00They said they have a long week ahead. At the moment, projections, initial projections are
09:04saying that the new Popular Front have about 125 to 165 seats in the parliament. And with the
09:12national rally projections saying they could secure between 230 and 280 seats, the fight is on.
09:20So that is their plan moving forward. They are not giving up. And just a few minutes from here
09:25on Place de la RĂ©publique, last night, huge crowds were gathering to listen to speeches of the left
09:32wing party members, who were once again rallying everyone up and saying, we can do this, we're not
09:39giving up. Well, tell us a bit more then, Lizza, about this strategy going into the second round.
09:45We've been talking about these three-way races and some candidates deciding to step aside to
09:52allow for more concentration of anti-far-right votes. How is that going to work and who's saying what?
10:01So the new Popular Front laid out their strategy. It is clear, as you said,
10:06they have to block the far right and they have called on all of their candidates who have come
10:13in third place in their respective constituencies and are facing a national rally candidate who's
10:18in first place. They've called on them to withdraw from the second round. As you said, the idea is
10:24that the votes are not spread out across several left and centre party candidates. And the idea is
10:32for the candidates who are most likely to beat the national rally to get all the votes. Now,
10:38latest figures are showing that the new Popular Front will be going through to the second round
10:43in 105 of such three-way run-offs. The latest estimates say that overall there are about 306
10:53such three-way run-offs across the country. That's an incredibly high number. In some constituencies,
10:58there will be a four-way run-off, which means two members of the left-wing coalition will be going
11:04through to the second round. But, of course, figures are likely to change. All parties,
11:10blocs have until tomorrow, the 2nd of July, to finalise and submit their new lists of candidates
11:18for the second round of the election this Sunday. All right, Lisa, and that's something that we will
11:24be keeping an eye on in the next few hours, then, how those races shape up. Let's bring back
11:31political scientist Dr Anna McKeever on this. Talking about the left, it's struggled in the
11:38past to present a united front. And so is this what we're seeing now, the new Popular Front,
11:43just another example of a hastily cobbled-together coalition? I mean, divisions still exist between
11:51these four parties. Can they present a united front? Yes, absolutely. As highlighted by your
11:59colleague, we have seen last night Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon from the Unbowed Front saying that
12:04indeed where the left-wing coalition got a third seat in one constituency, they will
12:14stand their candidates down in order to present the Republican Front to block the rise of
12:19national rally and block the national rally from getting the majority of seats, or at least the
12:24overall majority of seats. Indeed, the coalition has been put very quickly, the new Popular Front,
12:31but the fact that actually they have done much better in this election compared to NUPES in 2022.
12:37So they increased their share of votes by 3% from 25 in 2022 to 28 in 2024 legislative election in
12:46the first round. So we're actually seeing that this strong mobilization and resistance to the
12:52national rally has benefited the left-wing coalition. So they've increased their share of
13:00seats. Also, of course, we need to think about the demise of Macron's ensemble, the coalition of
13:07three parties of the centre and right, which are actually not so united in their kind of response
13:15to forming the Republican Front. And there are some differences in terms of whether they should
13:20stand candidates down or whether they should not. So in this case, I would say that the left actually
13:26has done better, as we can see from the results, and they're more united in terms of forming that
13:31Republican Front in order to block Rassemblement National from getting absolute majority or getting
13:39more seats. All right, Dr. Anna McKeever, I'm going to ask you to stand by once more. You
13:44mentioned Macron's ensemble coalition and his renaissance party. I want to get the reaction
13:50from our journalist, Peter O'Brien, who's at the party headquarters this Monday. Peter, then, this
13:57huge embarrassment for Macron after he called these snap elections just three weeks ago.
14:04Yeah, it's been a complete disaster. I mean, even those close to him, his inner circle, his party
14:10camp were terrified about what would happen when he did call that surprise snap election on the
14:159th of June. We were hearing there about this three-way race, right, that's coming up next
14:20Sunday in 300 constituencies. That's a record number. And how Macron's coalition, you can't
14:26really call it that anymore. The message discipline is not there. Yes, the Prime Minister
14:31Gabriel Attal came out a couple hours after the results came in last night to say, if we have a
14:38third-place candidate, they will stand down so that the Rassemblement National has less of a chance
14:44of winning the seat. But François Bayrou, the head of Modem, one part of the coalition,
14:50Edouard Philippe, head of Horizons, another part of the coalition, they've said, actually, we're
14:54going to be out to block both the Rassemblement National and the far-left LFU coalition.
14:59And the far-left LFE, which is the main part of the left-wing bloc. So we're seeing there that
15:05there's this confusion and complete lack of message discipline from what was the presidential
15:13majority in Parliament as to what to do in this three-way race. And obviously, the more confusion
15:21there is, the more likely it's going to play into the hands of the far-rights.
15:26All right, Peter O'Brien from the Renaissance Macron's party headquarters. Thank you very much.
15:33Well, bringing back Anna McKeever on that, I want to bounce back and talk about Macron's journey. I
15:40mean, he was elected in 2017 as kind of a maverick centrist promising to reinvigorate France.
15:48What happened? Where did he go wrong?
15:50I think it's not just the problem that Macron did go somewhere wrong. Indeed, he did. Because if we
15:55look at the reforms that he has passed, for example, the pension reform, he did resort to
15:59the Article 49.3 of the French Constitution, and he passed other legislation using that article.
16:05The article basically allows him to pass legislation without a vote in the National
16:09Assembly. So he's been pushing in through the legislation that he kind of wanted without
16:17having a proper vote in the National Assembly. And then, of course, we've seen the Gilets
16:22Jaunes protests a couple of years ago. So Macron has been losing his popularity,
16:28but I don't think it's just because of his agenda and his positions, because incumbents tend to fare
16:35worse in the subsequent election or when they are governing in the office. So they tend to
16:40lose popularity over time because they have been passing unpopular policies, as we've seen in France
16:47with regards to pension, for example. He also resorted to the article to pass some other
16:55legislation. But I just think that we need to think more about how the people, how the voters
17:03perceive Macron as a political establishment, and that I think that he didn't do much for the
17:10left-wing voters. So I think that's why we're seeing this resurgence in the support for the
17:16left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire coalition. And that's why we're seeing kind of, you know, the
17:22demise of his centrist bloc. And it's exactly as highlighted by your colleague, there is very
17:28little kind of discipline within this coalition, where different parties within the coalition do
17:34not agree on whether the candidates should or should not stand down or whether they should
17:38adopt Nini's strategy. All right, then let's talk about Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old who's slated
17:45to become Prime Minister if the national rally gets a majority in Parliament. He says he doesn't
17:50want to govern if he doesn't have enough seats to have a majority. That's been the case for
17:57Macron's renaissance party. What would a hung Parliament then mean for France?
18:04Okay, so a hung Parliament will mean cohabitation, so cohabitation with Macron as the president,
18:10so whatever two or two and a half years is left. So if Rassemblement National and Bardella don't get
18:18enough seats to get the overall majority, I think what we need to look at is Éric Ciotti
18:24and his kind of group within the Republican kind of broken down party now, because they might be
18:31instrumental in giving Jordan Bardella and Rassemblement National that support that is
18:38needed. But of course, in any case, you know, Rassemblement National will need to cohabitate,
18:44coexist with Macron as the president. And maybe Macron is thinking here long term gain
18:50in terms of discrediting Rassemblement National by letting them into government for a couple of
18:58years and actually showing voters that they're not credible in doing that. But we need to remember
19:04that Rassemblement National will rely very much, they are unlikely to get the overall majority,
19:10but again, it's very difficult to predict, but they will rely a lot on Éric Ciotti and that group
19:19from the Republicans party in order to form potential coalition. I don't see, you know,
19:25any other party, maybe some independent candidates, but I don't see any other party
19:30forming really a coalition with Rassemblement National if it is the case of the Hague
19:37Parliament. All right, well, we'll have to wait and see how all of this plays out. We'll of course
19:42be covering that here on France 24. Dr. Anna McKeever, thank you very much for speaking to us.
19:47Thank you.