Far right seeks to turn election win into majority
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00to talk a bit more about all of this with France 24's Clovis Casali who is at
00:03the National Rally headquarters in Paris. Clovis, just a few more hours before the
00:08candidates for the second round have to be locked in. What's the far-right
00:11hoping for at this point?
00:15Well here at the National Rally headquarters there have been meetings all
00:20morning. It's now the lunch break and there'll be more later on. But one close
00:24advisor, Jardin Bardella, told us all the deals have already been clinched with
00:29potential allies and they remain confident at the French far-right that
00:34they will get an absolute majority. That's of course what they are telling
00:38us. The National Rally that has managed to reach the second round of the
00:43legislative elections in 444 constituencies, that's out of a total of
00:51577. Marine Le Pen, the historic leader of the French far-right party, was on
01:00French radio this morning and she appeared extremely confident. Take a
01:04listen. When we have say 270 members of Parliament, we'll need 19 more. We'll go
01:12to the others and ask them, are you prepared to join us for a new government,
01:16for a new politics? Yes or no? Are you prepared to give us a vote of
01:22confidence? Are you prepared to vote for the budget? Who are these others?
01:29Well it's a few MPs, members of certain groups on the right, on the left, some
01:33from the Republicans, who have in the past shown themselves to be close to our
01:37views. And if at that time we have a majority, we will do what the voters have
01:42elected us to do.
01:47Cleves, there are just a few days left now until that second round vote coming
01:51up on Sunday. What is the National Rally going to focus on now in these remaining
01:55days of the campaign? Well the National Rally and Jordan Bardella has a very
02:04clear strategy and that is to come across as the normal party, if you will.
02:09The reasonable choice and this as opposed to the French left-wing bloc, for
02:14instance, described as a left-wing bloc that would cause chaos and insurrection
02:20in the country. Marine Le Pen also attacking Emmanuel Macron, the French
02:25president, who she says is doing everything he can to try to prevent her
02:31party from getting into a government and in a way acting on democratically, not
02:36respecting the vote of the French people. At the same time, there are
02:41several cases across France, rather disturbing and not good for the image of
02:45the French far-right. Take Calvados area in Normandy, where the French far-right
02:52has had to pull out one of its candidates after it was found that there
02:56were pictures circulating of this candidate wearing a baseball cap with a
03:01Nazi symbol on it, a picture dating back from a few years ago. Still, the
03:06National Rally decided to pull out that candidate. She won't be running in the
03:11second round of the legislative elections and there are several cases of
03:16anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic comments made in the past with candidates having to be
03:21pulled out and that's of course tarnishing the image of the French
03:26far-right party that's trying to come across as normal as possible.
03:30All right, Clovis, thanks for that. Clovis Casale there reporting for us from the
03:34National Rally headquarters in Paris.