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for you at spectrum.com-business. Today

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on State of the World, election surprises

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and a surprise election in

0:23

Europe. You're

0:27

listening to State of the World from NPR, the

0:29

day's most vital international stories up close

0:31

where they're happening. It's Monday, June 10th.

0:34

I'm Greg Dixon. In Europe,

0:36

the far rate made big gains in

0:38

the European parliament. 27

0:41

countries went to the polls over the weekend,

0:43

and while the center party still has a

0:45

majority, it is much smaller now. Here's

0:48

European Commission President Ursula von der

0:50

Leyen. The center is

0:52

holding, but it is also

0:54

true that the extremes on

0:56

the left and on the right have

0:58

gained support. And this

1:01

is why the result comes

1:03

with great responsibility for

1:05

the parties in the center. To

1:08

understand the implications of this shift,

1:10

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talked to

1:12

Constanza Stelzenmuller. She's a senior fellow

1:14

at the Brookings Institution and a

1:16

European security expert. These are elections

1:18

for the European parliament, which is

1:21

the legislative organ of the European Union,

1:23

but they're managed by the member states

1:25

and they're contested by national political parties,

1:27

which always means that all

1:30

these elections are also referendums on

1:32

incumbent governments, right? And those

1:34

referendums were particularly severe in

1:36

France and in Germany. In

1:39

France, in fact, the hard right, Rasson-Lebon

1:42

National Party of Marine Le Pen,

1:45

the leader of the opposition

1:47

to President Macron, swept

1:49

the country, literally. And

1:52

Macron immediately dissolved

1:54

the national parliament and

1:56

called new elections on July 7th.

2:00

And there is a distinct possibility

2:02

that that will end up with

2:04

a hard-right prime minister, still

2:07

under President Macron, in the form of Marine

2:10

de Pen, making

2:12

for very fraught French politics. Making

2:14

him something of a lame duck

2:16

president. Possibly. Because of the

2:18

presidential system, he still has considerable powers.

2:20

But it will make for fraught national

2:22

politics, and it will make for a

2:25

president who has been very forward-leaning, for

2:27

example, on Ukraine, against

2:31

a prime minister whose parties has

2:33

been notably pro-Russian in its

2:35

pronouncements. That could make for some very

2:37

fraught tension going forward. And then

2:39

in Germany, where you are, where it's your

2:41

read on the situation there? And in Germany,

2:43

it's slightly more complicated, because it's always more

2:46

complicated. You are German,

2:48

so you're allowed to say that, yes. It's a form

2:50

of national narcissism, I guess. So

2:52

we have a fraught center-left

2:54

traffic light three-way coalition under

2:56

Chancellor Olaf Schatz, which has

2:58

been struggling for a variety

3:00

of reasons. And the

3:03

European Parliament elections put the

3:07

center-right opposition leader of the

3:09

CDU firmly in first place,

3:12

and the extreme-right AFD in

3:14

second place, ahead of

3:16

every one of the three

3:18

parties of the traffic

3:21

light coalition, including the Social

3:23

Democrats of Chancellor Schatz. That

3:25

is terrible. And

3:29

the Greens especially got

3:31

a trouncing. They lost 8.6%. That

3:35

is a very bad report card for a

3:37

government that was really helping to get a

3:39

bit of a fillip ahead of very difficult

3:41

state elections in the fall, in

3:43

September, and then national elections a year

3:46

later. So understanding

3:49

that it is difficult, indeed

3:51

impossible, to generalize across a

3:53

continent, what are the issues

3:55

driving this? Is this about immigration? Is

3:58

it about war, the economy? What? all

4:00

of the above. Also about

4:02

climate change. And I

4:04

think there's a generalized anxiety about

4:06

Europe's strategic exposure at a

4:09

time when the

4:11

Russians are waging war on the

4:13

continent, when the Chinese are interfering

4:15

in European politics, and when it

4:19

seems unclear what

4:21

the outcome of the US election will be. The

4:25

cooperation between Europeans and the

4:27

Biden administration has

4:30

been unusually harmonious, especially

4:32

on supporting Ukraine. But

4:35

I think most of Europe still has

4:37

PTSD with regard

4:40

to the four years of the Trump administration,

4:42

and is dreading more of the

4:44

same or worse. Stay with that for

4:46

a minute. What might this portend for

4:49

the US? Americans listening might recall the

4:51

vote back in 2016 for Brexit in

4:53

the UK, the shift to the right

4:55

in the UK, and then six months

4:57

later, Donald Trump won the

4:59

presidency here in the US. I

5:01

think it would be stretching Europe's

5:03

influence a tad too far to

5:06

suggest that what happens in Europe

5:08

has consequences for American political elections,

5:10

presidential elections especially. Although those same

5:12

issues are driving voters here, immigration,

5:14

the economy, wars. That's certainly correct.

5:16

Hard right groupings in America and

5:18

in Europe are watching each other very

5:20

closely. See each other

5:22

as mutual enablers are encouraged by

5:25

each other's successes. And

5:27

of course, what many of them

5:29

have in common is a distinct

5:32

sympathy for autocrats and authoritarian

5:34

governments, such as those in

5:36

Russia and in China. You

5:38

know, as you watch the main

5:40

headline here, voters in Europe

5:42

shifting to the right, do

5:44

you hear champagne corks popping in

5:47

the Kremlin? I think we can

5:49

assume that given the amount of

5:51

disinformation and disruption that was clearly

5:54

coming from Russia during

5:56

the election campaign period.

5:58

And that was

6:00

clearly trying to

6:02

confuse voters, trying to

6:05

put them off incumbent

6:07

governments and push them

6:09

towards more extremist parties. But I

6:12

also want to say this. The

6:15

external authoritarian

6:17

interference only

6:20

exploits vulnerabilities that are already there.

6:23

Right? And those vulnerabilities on us,

6:25

they are on democratic governments in

6:27

Europe that are struggling

6:29

to solve crucial problems of

6:31

government, such as climate

6:33

change, such as migration, such

6:36

as economic stability. That's

6:38

on us and it's only being

6:40

exploited by the others. Constanze

6:42

Stelzenmuller, director of the Center on

6:44

the US and Europe at the

6:47

Brookings Institution, we reached her in

6:49

Munich. Thank you. My pleasure as always,

6:51

Mary Louise. Thank you. As we

6:53

just heard in France, President Emmanuel Macron

6:55

reacted to his party's massive loss by

6:58

dissolving the French parliament, calling new elections

7:00

in a bid to get stronger backing

7:02

for his remaining three years as president.

7:05

The move stunned the country. And

7:08

Paris' Eleanor Beardsley brings us reactions

7:10

from Paris. About an

7:12

hour after European Parliament results showed President

7:14

Emmanuel Macron's party with 15

7:16

percent of the vote and far-right leader

7:19

Marine Le Pen's with 32 percent, he

7:21

dropped the bomb on national television. The

7:23

party of French candidates, the

7:26

representatives of the current president

7:28

of the French Supreme Court.

7:31

I always considered a strong, independent and

7:33

united Europe a good thing for France,

7:35

said Macron, so I cannot accept this.

7:37

Macron said he was acting to clarify

7:39

France's ambitions and give the French people

7:42

the choice of their parliamentary future through

7:44

the vote. The two-round poll will take

7:46

place June 30 and July 7. This

7:51

morning in Montmartre, 21-year-old geography student Louis

7:53

Grusé was talking with a friend

7:55

as they stood under his umbrella.

7:57

He says Macron's move was massive.

8:00

Yes, it's quite massive, but... So are you

8:03

worried about what will happen? Yeah, I'm quite worried, yeah. But

8:07

I think that we must

8:10

to fight them. The younger

8:14

must vote, and I think

8:16

that it's really, really important. Grusé

8:18

says the French are in shock

8:20

with the far-right Rassomblement Nationale or

8:22

National Rally Party now at the

8:24

doors to power. Many

8:27

wonder if Macron will be able to stop

8:29

the unthinkable. Douglas Weber, who

8:31

teaches political science at French business school

8:33

in Sied, isn't sure he will. I

8:36

regard this being a very,

8:38

very risky maneuver, and

8:41

I think it's one that's more than

8:43

likely to backfire. It's really quite likely

8:45

that the Rassomblement Nationale will get either

8:47

a relative or an absolute majority at

8:49

the end of the day in the

8:51

parliamentary elections. If that

8:53

were to happen, France would have divided

8:55

government, what's known as cohabitation, and Macron's

8:58

prime minister would be from the hostile

9:00

opposition. Traditionally, French voters

9:02

of all stripes have always come together

9:04

to block the far-right from power, like

9:06

in 2002 when Marine Le Pen's father

9:09

Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the

9:11

second round of the presidential election. But

9:13

Montmartre shopkeeper Antony Bovet doesn't think

9:16

that will happen this time. Macron

9:20

is playing his last hand in poker, but

9:22

this time I think he's going to lose.

9:24

We already voted for him twice

9:26

in the last two presidential elections, many just

9:28

to block her. I believe we're

9:30

going to see the far-right in power for the first time.

9:35

A busker plays an accordion in the Paris Metro. Forty-year-old

9:38

lawyer David Bergamo is coming home from

9:40

work. He says

9:42

many people who vote for the far-right are afraid to

9:44

say so, but he's not. We

9:47

ride the Metro in tall. We

9:51

can't keep opening our borders and

9:54

welcoming people. We have no

9:56

more work. Factories are closing. French

9:58

humanism is over. We can't

10:01

afford it. France's political landscape

10:03

is extremely fragmented after its

10:05

mainstream right and left parties

10:07

imploded several years ago. Macron's

10:10

party is fracturing. France is

10:12

entering a period of uncertainty

10:14

rarely seen before. Eleanor Beersley,

10:17

NPR News, Paris. That's

10:23

the state of the world from NPR. Thanks

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