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00:00Well, for more, let's bring in Joseph Downing in London. He's a senior lecturer in politics
00:04and international relations at Aston University. Thanks so much for speaking to us. France is
00:10a country with little taste for political compromise and collaboration. Bearing this
00:16in mind, who, in your opinion, will be France's next prime minister? I mean,
00:19what's the most likely scenario here? It's really, really difficult to tell,
00:25so in typical terms, given the election outcome, we would probably see in other countries where the
00:37political system is not quite so polarised, we'd probably see Mélenchon as the leader of that
00:42bloc, be in pole position to become the second in charge of France. However, I'm not quite sure if
00:48that can happen. Why? Well, because I think he's too far to the left and he's made too many
00:53statements, controversial statements around things like the war in Gaza, around changing
00:59completely the economic outlook of France, for Macron or for people elsewhere in the coalition
01:07to be comfortable with him in that role, which leaves the field really quite wide open. The
01:11problem that the left bloc has is they can unite around a single issue, which is to keep the
01:16national rally out of power, but they don't really agree on very much else. You've got a very loose
01:22grouping there of centre left, hardcore, the inheritors of France's communist party that
01:30want the nationalisation of industries and all kinds of things like that. And then you've got
01:34other kind of more ecological left type of groups. So the field really, really is quite open. And
01:39it's really going to be interesting to see how the compromises that have to be struck are struck
01:44over the next couple of days. So you talk about the left, but I just want to delve into it a bit
01:49further because the left coalition, the NFP has managed to join forces in record time, but it's
01:54now obviously still scrambling to put forward a leader to represent them. It claims it will offer
01:59one of their candidates for the position of prime minister. But can this strategy
02:03succeed, especially as you mentioned, amid all the internal rivalry and disagreement present?
02:09I mean, it can technically on paper, but whether it does or not,
02:13it's quite difficult to say. The real problem here is what happens if it doesn't succeed. Now,
02:18the stakes are really high, right? Because the last thing that France needs or wants
02:23is to go into another election cycle. And that's one of the kind of key issues here is that actually
02:29on both sides, compromise may be necessitated by the seriousness really of the political
02:35crisis that France faces. The far right national rally finished in third place,
02:40despite many predicting it would come out on top. What's the future for the party? Where do they go
02:46from here? Well, I mean, that actually suits them, to be honest with you, right? Because their
02:50entire legitimacy and their entire strategy has been successful because they've not held power
02:57in any significant way. Yes, they have at the local level, but they haven't governed nationally.
03:01So they haven't been tarnished with the allegations of corruption and incompetence that the centre
03:05left and the centre right, nor the sort of allegations of Macron being a president for
03:10the rich that the centre has faced. So to be honest, it actually suits them quite well.
03:14Where does the party go from here? I would say continuing down the road of mainstreamisation
03:20of the party. So pulling it away from its kind of fascist origins continually. And we're also
03:26likely to see an increased role for Jordan Bendata-Bardala, who in fact is a fresh face,
03:31who's not tarnished by being part of the Le Pen dynasty that's dominated this party since
03:37its inception. And who genuinely does come from a poor suburb of Paris, right?
03:44When he speaks about people being marginalised, when he speaks about poverty, when he speaks
03:47about these issues in France, he genuinely has experienced it. And I think we're going to see
03:51a shift with the party more towards him, which I think for the long term is quite worrying because
03:56I think he's much more likely to be elected. A, I don't think France is ready to elect a female
04:01president. And B, he's not tarnished by connections to the Le Pen dynasty and the fascism that that
04:10often came with early on in the international front years.
04:14And what should we make of Emmanuel Macron's open letter to the French people? He's now
04:19obviously viewed as much weakened following that snap election gamble.
04:23What could be next for his Together movement?
04:26Well, that's the other problem here, right, is what is Macron going to do to really ensure that
04:31there's a legacy for his movement? At the moment, it's way too tied up with him, right? And it's
04:37personalised around him. He's made efforts to bring in Attal to be a sort of future face of
04:43that movement. But so far, that's been pretty unsuccessful. Attal's quite unpopular. He doesn't
04:47have the same sort of, you know, blue collar credentials that Bardala has, although he's
04:53another young man and a fresh face on the French political scene. And again, so that is another
04:58aspect of uncertainty and really the key take home message I would say here about the future
05:02of French politics is about uncertainty. And the problem is, you know, uncertainty is not good. And
05:08we can see that with, you know, the panic of the bond markets and the financial markets around
05:13the possibility of a far right win. And I think what we're likely to see is just a continuation of
05:19uncertainty really, in France as we lead into the next presidential election cycle,
05:23which is only a few years away.
05:26Right. Joseph Downing from Aston University,
05:28thank you so much for your very interesting analysis and for your time.
05:32Thank you.