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00:00All right, let's get a bit more analysis about the election now with French politics specialist
00:04David Lees, who joins me from the University of Warwick.
00:07David, thanks for taking the time to speak to us.
00:09What are your thoughts now on this Monday after this incredible first round of the election
00:13last night?
00:14How do you see the week of political wrangling playing out?
00:17Well, it was indeed a very fascinating night, wasn't it, and some very interesting results.
00:23I think in many ways, the hardest part for the BRN, the Assemblée nationale party, is
00:29the week ahead.
00:30As you say, it's one of the largest percentages of votes last night, but of course, this is
00:35a two-round contest.
00:36As we've been talking about already on the program, very clearly, there will need to
00:40be a number of behind-the-scenes deals between the so-called New Popular Front, the left-wing
00:45coalition you've just been talking about, and perhaps Emmanuel Macron's Ensemblée,
00:50the sort of more centrist coalition.
00:53I think what's very likely to happen is where we do see these potential three-way runoffs
00:57in some of the constituencies where three candidates have gone through to the second
01:00round, we'll see a number of deals behind closed doors to ensure there is only one kind
01:06of more moderate candidate going off against an RN candidate.
01:09But what I think we also need to bear in mind as we've been establishing is that where somebody
01:14from within the Popular Front coalition comes from the hard left, the France insoumise,
01:20the France unbowed party led by Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon, it may well be the case that voters choose
01:26perhaps to spoil their ballots or to not vote in place of voting for either a radical right party
01:33or a more radical left party with MĂ©lenchon's group.
01:36So we will see a lot of deals behind closed doors.
01:38We'll see a lot of horse wrangling, as it were, between now and next Sunday.
01:42What I do think, as I say, is it's going to be very hard for the National Rally Party to win
01:48an overall majority on the current base of votes.
01:51Indeed, on the basis of the European election results, arguably last night wasn't a brilliant
01:55night for the RN. Yes, they've emerged as the party with the most votes overall.
01:59But actually, they are now going to have to go off in these runoffs next week,
02:04which will prove, I think, much more challenging than perhaps
02:06Jordan Bardella and his team would like to make out.
02:10David, just a question for many people, many foreign viewers who perhaps aren't as up to snuff
02:14on French politics as you are. For many people, for many years, the National Rally, the far right,
02:19has been embodied by Marine Le Pen. Just explain to us why she's pushing forward
02:24her protégé, this Jordan Bardella, for this top job of prime minister,
02:28instead of gunning for the job herself.
02:31Well, you're absolutely right. The Le Pen family is most closely associated with,
02:36first of all, the Front National, the National Front, and now, more recently,
02:38the Ration National, the National Rally Party, because it's been largely their kind of family
02:43party, really, for the last three or four decades. What Marine Le Pen is hoping to do,
02:48I would suggest, is concentrate on another bid for the Élysée Palace for the presidency of France
02:53in 2027, so really kind of holding back until that point, really, to take control of the
02:59executive power overall in France, as opposed to the legislative power around the National Assembly.
03:04That's why Le Pen is pushing forward. But Bardella is her kind of protégé, as you say,
03:08someone who is a telegenic, quite charismatic figure, certainly younger than Marine Le Pen,
03:14and is trying to present himself, as we've been hearing already, as a moderate and more
03:18approachable candidate than, indeed, Marine Le Pen herself. That's Le Pen's long game,
03:23I think, is to aim for the presidency again at the next presidential election.
03:27I think Bardella has a lot of promise in terms of the sort of hard vote of the RN,
03:32but he doesn't come from that lineage of the Le Pen family, which I think, ultimately,
03:36may end up counting against him in the longer term when it comes to next week's election.
03:40You know, often in France, we say the first round you vote with your heart, the second round you
03:44vote with your head, i.e. more strategically. Do you think that that – how will that play out,
03:49do you think, in Sunday's vote? I think it's very likely that we'll have a similar situation
03:54to those seen previously when the National Front or the National Rally more recently has made it
03:59through to a second round runoff, whether that's at a parliamentary election or whether that's
04:03at a presidential election. And many voters will turn out and will choose to vote, as it were,
04:08with their heads against the RN to try to block the prospect of having a far-right government
04:13in power cohabiting with a centrist president in the form of Emmanuel Macron. I think it's
04:18very likely that we'll see, as I say, people voting for whether that's a left-wing coalition
04:23prospective candidate or not. David, sorry to jump in. So I guess the other question is,
04:28where does this leave Macron's centrist party? Are we seeing the end of the Ensemble, the
04:33Renaissance? I think it's very likely, yes. I think given the decline in Macron's popularity
04:40over the last term of office and then more recently in his presidency, and given its
04:45failure to gain much traction in the local and national elections recently, I think that's very
04:49likely indeed. So, David, let's talk a bit about turnout. I mean, the turnout was incredibly huge,
04:5665 percent compared to 47 percent in the first round of the last parliamentary election two
05:01years ago. Was that all just due to this fear of the far-right or was it because people wanted to
05:07support the far-right? I think it's very much a combination of both. As you say, people wanted
05:11to turn out to back the far-right following on from their success at the European elections,
05:16also wanting, as you say, to block it. So a combination of those two factors. Normally,
05:20when turnout is high, this prevents an extreme right government from gaining power, extreme
05:24party from gaining power. In this occasion, what we've actually seen, as we said, is actually the
05:28far-right gaining the biggest percentage of votes. So it's in some ways a kind of double-edged sword,
05:32I think, for the RN in terms of this high-inverse turnout. And let's talk a bit more about, again,
05:38the sheer numbers of people who actually did turn out to vote for the far-right. I mean,
05:41we've seen that number almost triple in the past two years. What's been happening in French society
05:47that's pushed people to vote more and more for the far-right, which in
05:51just recent years was seen as something that was almost taboo?
05:55It's very much a combination of factors. So firstly, the far-right has done a lot in terms
05:59of trying to de-demonise the party, to try and cleanse the image of the far-right party,
06:03the National, over the last 10 years or so, particularly under Marine Le Pen's leadership,
06:08while also concentrating on the fact that Macron and his government have introduced
06:11a number of unpopular reforms. Macron remains a very unpopular, somewhat aloof president.
06:16So it's a combination of those two factors, I think, playing into the hands of the far-right
06:20in terms of people going out and voting for them, as well as, of course, the ongoing impacts,
06:24I think, perhaps, of the COVID lockdowns and that being very associated with Macron's presidency.
06:28All right, David, thanks so much for taking the time to speak to us. That's David Lees
06:32speaking to me there from the University of Warwick. Thank you very much.