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00:00Anne McKeever, she's a lecturer in political science and she focuses
00:04on conservatism and on the radical right. Good afternoon to you, thanks for joining us today.
00:14Let me ask you first of all about the national rally. Maureen Le Pen has framed her party's loss
00:21at the election as a plot by establishment parties to keep her party from power, that via the tactical
00:29voting we saw over the weekend. Is there truth in that, do you think?
00:35Yes, so we've seen Maureen Le Pen and Jordan Bardella in the last few days after the results
00:40were released, arguing that the Republican front and the so-called tactical voting stopped
00:47Rassemblement National from getting into power, despite the fact that they got 10 million voters
00:53supporting them. So even though they come as the biggest party in the National Assembly, if
00:59we look at the share of seats, they will actually be able to capitalise on this chaos and instability
01:07in terms of coalition formation at the minute, because they would be able to present themselves
01:12again as political outsiders, despite the fact that they've actually increased their share of
01:18votes and their share of seats in the lower chamber of the National Assembly.
01:22So this current situation is actually playing in favour of the national rally, because they're
01:30saying that no other group has enough MPs to be able to form government. So there needs to be
01:40a compromise found between very different blocs, and as rightly pointed by your correspondent,
01:46all these blocs have very different platforms. So it will be very difficult to come to the
01:51compromise. And what National Rally is looking to do is indeed to start preparing the candidates
01:57for the upcoming snap election. Indeed, it cannot happen for at least one year. But if,
02:04no matter who is going to be in government, whether it's going to be a left leaning government,
02:09or whether it's going to be a centrist plus a right wing coalition government,
02:14and it doesn't matter, it will still help Resemblement National to present the future
02:22government as incompetent, because it will be very difficult for them to pass the legislation.
02:27So they are going to play into that. And do you agree with what Clovis, our reporter,
02:34was saying there as well, that they are effectively now, even though we've just had
02:39the election, in campaign mode again, they're working on the assumption that whatever government
02:44is formed, it will be rather weak. And we will have an election as soon as possible,
02:48which is then in a year. Yeah, I totally agree with this. As I said, it doesn't matter if it's
02:55going to be left leaning or right leaning or centrist government, it will be very difficult
03:00for them to pass legislation. And Resemblement National is going to capitalise on that,
03:06they're going to say that the government is not representing the interests of the ordinary people.
03:11And Resemblement National will be seen, or will be portrayed by themselves as the only
03:18credible defender of the French democracy. So yeah, it is unlikely that the government that
03:24is going to be the future French government is going to hold for a long time, but they're going
03:30need to wait for at least a year. And Resemblement National is definitely going to prepare,
03:36you know, in the meantime, start work on preparing their candidates because their campaign,
03:43you know, the results of the second round actually exposed quite a few cracks within the party and
03:48within the campaign. And they are going to start reflecting on this electoral defeat
03:55that they've experienced. You talk about cracks within the national rally in terms of how they
04:01fought this campaign. Can you give us a couple of specifics? What are you thinking of there?
04:07So I'm thinking, first of all, that, you know, obviously, there were some of the candidates
04:12that have been quite incompetent, they didn't know the programme of the party.
04:17And they also presented some of the positions, for example, on abortion, on Russia and on Putin,
04:23that diverged from the central line of the party. So the party will need to think about
04:29its professionalisation in the future in terms of selecting the candidates that will be competent,
04:37that will be selected on the meritocratic level. Also, in terms of the training that these
04:43candidates receive, because a lot has been said post-election, you know, a lot has been unveiled
04:50in terms of the lack of training that those candidates on the ground haven't received. And
04:57so the party needs to not only think about, you know, how to capitalise on the chaos and
05:02instability that is happening, you know, from other parties, but also actually what's happening
05:09within the party, because it needs to, it needs to think how it can basically professionalise
05:16the party in order to get more seats, in order to get more votes. So I believe that there's going
05:24to be some work done within the party as well on that. Okay, so that's your view of the strategy
05:30then of the national rally. Let's though look at the other big groupings, those that are most
05:35likely now to try and form a government, the left and the centre. I mean, where do you think these
05:41different groupings go from here? Because as we well know, all of the groupings are really far
05:46away from having the numbers needed for an absolute majority. Absolutely, they have so many
05:53disagreements in terms of policy. So currently we're seeing today that Renaissance, one of the
06:00biggest parties in the Ensemble Coalition, so they are already actually on the point of breakdown
06:06because there are some deputies from Renaissance that are willing to form, you know, a parliamentary
06:13group with some of their mainstream right, Les Républicains, but others are saying, no, we
06:18absolutely oppose that. So we're seeing actually, you know, internal divisions, as you pointed out,
06:24within other parties, like Centrist Alliance and within obviously the Le Nouveau Front Populaire,
06:30their left wing coalition, because a lot has been, currently the negotiations in terms of
06:36presenting a united name who will be the prime minister from that bloc are underway. And we know
06:47that Le Nouveau Front Populaire has a lot of internal disagreements, so they'll need to present
06:52that candidate and they promise that they'll do it by the end of the week. So at the minute,
06:57nothing, you know, can be certainly, you know, said with certainty. And this kind of political
07:04instability and political chaos where we're seeing different blocs having their internal disagreements
07:11coming kind of, you know, open, that will definitely benefit in the future of the national rally.
07:18Just a quick final question for you, because we don't have a lot of time left. These elections
07:23were on Sunday. We haven't heard a big speech from President Macron since then. Why not?
07:30Indeed, we actually haven't heard that Emmanuel Macron, he hasn't called any of the leaders from
07:37the left wing coalition to congratulate them on, you know, getting the biggest share of votes.
07:44So I think partly because Macron was hoping to come as a winner from this snap election. And
07:51despite the fact that, you know, his bloc, Ensemble, has done better than expected,
07:56the bloc has benefited a lot from the tactical voting as well, because a lot of left wing voters
08:01voted for Ensemble when there was a duels between Rassemblement National and Ensemble candidates.
08:08So I think Macron was expecting to come as the winner. He didn't do that. So now he's trying
08:13to rethink the strategy. I do believe he doesn't trust, you know, other political blocs. So
08:20he's trying to think, you know, how basically to save his face and come out of this as with a
08:27relative, yeah, with less problems, basically. But I think that it is quite surprising that he hasn't
08:36made any contact with the left wing coalition, who has got the biggest share of votes.
08:44Anne McKeever, great to talk to you. Thanks very much.
08:46Thank you.