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Investing, or wherever you get

0:26

your podcasts. From

0:29

the New York Times, I'm Katrin Benholt.

0:31

This is The Daily. The

0:41

far right in France had a big win this month.

0:44

It crushed the party of President Emmanuel

0:46

Macron in elections for the European parliament,

0:49

but it was a largely symbolic win because

0:51

the elections did not affect France's government at

0:54

home until Macron

0:56

changed that. Today,

0:58

my colleague Roger Cohen on the

1:00

huge political gamble Macron has taken

1:03

and how the far right is now closer than ever to

1:05

gaining real power in France. It's

1:13

Wednesday, June 26. Roger,

1:22

the far right has been a player in French

1:25

politics for a very long time. I used to

1:27

be based in France myself and remember writing about

1:29

it like 15 years ago. And of course, you've

1:31

been on the show more recently to talk about

1:33

it. But now the far

1:35

right has its best shot yet at

1:38

actually governing. Walk us

1:40

through what just happened. Well, Katrin,

1:42

the national rally formerly known as

1:44

the National Front, the far right

1:47

anti-immigration party in France headed by

1:49

Marine Le Pen has been rising

1:51

for some time due to growing

1:55

frustration with the government,

1:58

growing anti-immigrant feeling in France.

2:00

France and the

2:02

feeling of marginalization among many

2:04

people. But

2:06

until very recently, nobody thought the

2:08

National Rally could actually govern France.

2:13

The world's largest multi-country election is

2:16

underway for the next European Parliament

2:18

today. Now, suddenly

2:20

what has happened is that early

2:23

this month, European Parliament elections were

2:25

held. Millions of people in 27

2:27

nations are deciding what the next

2:30

five years will look like for

2:32

the European Union. These

2:34

are elections to the directly

2:37

elected body of the

2:39

European Union. I'm

2:44

currently at the National

2:46

Rally's electoral party in eastern

2:48

Paris, where they're just crushing

2:50

it. And

2:54

there was a huge breakthrough

2:56

for the party. The

3:03

National Rally got more than 30%

3:05

of the vote, which was more

3:07

than twice the total of President

3:09

Emmanuel Macron's party. It

3:12

came in easily first among

3:14

French parties. And

3:17

this produced general

3:19

disarray in the country. Today

3:22

you are called upon to vote in

3:24

the European elections, in mainland France. And

3:28

induced in President Macron a

3:31

shock decision. I have decided to

3:33

give you again the choice of

3:35

our parliamentary future through the vote.

3:37

And that was to dissolve Parliament,

3:40

or National Assembly as it's called

3:42

here. Something he

3:44

had absolutely no obligation to do under

3:46

the Constitution. I will be

3:48

signing the decree that will call the

3:50

French people on the 30th of June

3:53

to legislative elections in the 7th. And

3:56

call new legislative elections, which will

3:58

be held. in two

4:00

parts, the first this coming weekend and

4:03

then the next a week later. And

4:05

he can just do that? Yeah, he can do

4:08

that. The president has enormous powers and among those

4:10

is the power to

4:12

dissolve parliament and call

4:14

elections. The time is

4:16

now, long left the Republic, long left

4:18

France. So

4:23

let me just try to understand this.

4:25

There were these European elections which per

4:27

se have absolutely no impact on how

4:29

France itself is governed. In theory, they

4:31

did not affect the bounds of power inside

4:33

of France. You know, Macron remains president. He

4:35

doesn't have elections for another several years. And

4:38

yet at the very moment where the far

4:40

right is kind of looking stronger than ever,

4:42

he decides to call an

4:44

election. It seems a little nuts. Yeah,

4:47

on the face of it, it is pretty nuts.

4:49

So the National Rally has the wind in its

4:51

sails. And it's a

4:54

lot to expect that the French people

4:56

three weeks after one election are going

4:58

to vote entirely differently in this

5:00

next one. And it's a strong

5:02

possibility as a result that

5:05

the National Rally will be

5:07

the largest party in

5:10

the parliament. They may

5:12

not have an absolute majority of the

5:14

577 seats. If

5:17

they do, however, President Macron

5:19

would almost certainly be obliged to

5:21

name a prime minister from

5:24

the far right party. That would

5:26

be a transformative moment

5:28

in post-war French history. Right.

5:31

He'd basically be handing control of his

5:33

own government to his political enemy. Yes.

5:37

He didn't even consult his own

5:39

prime minister. He had named this

5:41

prime minister in January, Gabriel Atal.

5:43

He was Macron's wunderkind, his great

5:46

favorite. He did not consult him

5:48

on the decision which he took

5:51

in a small coterie of

5:53

four or five advisors.

5:55

And this is this is

5:57

provoked outrage within the government.

6:00

And perhaps it's most crystallized

6:03

in a photograph that emerged from

6:05

the lisé of the moment when

6:08

the president was announcing that he

6:10

was dissolving parliament. And you see

6:12

Atal, the prime minister, in

6:14

front of him looking absolutely

6:16

dumbfounded. And not only Atal,

6:19

but other members of the

6:21

government. So, Roger, I guess

6:23

the obvious question is, why did

6:25

Macron do this? Well,

6:28

you know, Katrin, the European parliament

6:30

elections are historically elections

6:32

where people feel they can blow off

6:35

steam because they have no direct

6:38

consequences on national

6:40

politics. So I assume that

6:42

Macron is thinking, well, you

6:45

blew off steam now. Okay, let's get serious.

6:49

And he thinks that when French people

6:51

do, they may en

6:53

masse vote differently. There's

6:56

a more cynical interpretation

6:58

of it that has been doing

7:00

the rounds, which is

7:03

that, and this too is risky, which

7:05

is that, okay, if

7:07

the National Rally has risen so much,

7:10

it's now inevitable that it's going to

7:12

come to power at some point. Why

7:14

not hand it power,

7:16

while I'm still president and

7:18

can control the

7:21

National Rally's exercise of that

7:23

power? For example, the president

7:25

continues to control defense and

7:28

foreign affairs questions. So

7:31

the bet then would be that the National

7:34

Rally would be in power

7:36

for the next three years, till the

7:38

next presidential election in 2027. And by

7:40

then, the sheen would be off them.

7:46

The sheen would be off the National

7:49

Rally. They would have failed. And, you

7:51

know, governing is much more difficult than

7:53

railing from outside. So some

7:55

people are looking at this and thinking, oh,

7:58

this is a strategy by Macron. basically

8:00

give away some power now and

8:03

hope that people fall out of love with the

8:05

far right before the next

8:07

presidential election. Yes, that's

8:09

right, Katrin. But ultimately, maybe

8:11

it's just as he said at this press

8:13

conference the other day, he wants to

8:15

put it to the people. The word

8:17

he used about 40 times was clarification.

8:20

There has to be a clarification of

8:22

where people stand. Are you really going

8:24

to hand power to the far right?

8:26

So he's calling the bluff

8:29

of voters or he thinks he is. You

8:31

make it sound almost like he's calling

8:33

basically a referendum on himself. And

8:36

what's more, it sounds like he thinks he's

8:38

going to win this referendum. I

8:41

wonder, what makes him so confident? Well,

8:44

Katrin, Mako is a confident guy.

8:48

Confidence sometimes for many people

8:50

bordering on arrogance. You know

8:52

that he's had a problem throughout his

8:54

seven-year presidency with people

8:56

who say that he looks down on

8:59

them, that he's a Jupiter-like figure, that

9:01

he's superior. Look, he's

9:03

never lost before. This was

9:06

a big defeat. And

9:08

there's a certain hubris

9:10

about him at this point, almost

9:13

an intellectual narcissism, it seems

9:15

sometimes, where against

9:17

all the evidence, he just

9:19

believes somehow he will

9:22

pull out a positive result in the

9:24

election. The thing is, though, that Macron

9:27

did something extraordinary. He burst on the scene

9:29

in 2017 and at a time when

9:35

nationalists and the liberal and

9:38

anti-immigrant politicians like Donald Trump himself were

9:40

rising, he said, no, I'm going

9:43

to stand for Europe and I'm

9:45

going to stand for liberal democracies.

9:47

And well, seven years

9:49

have gone by since then and

9:52

his star has faded. He's term limited. He

9:55

will be gone in three years. People are

9:57

beginning to desert him. None

10:00

of the politicians from his own party, or

10:02

virtually none of them, who

10:04

are running now, they don't want an

10:06

image of Macron on their posters. They

10:08

don't want to be seen with Macron.

10:11

He's seen as negative.

10:14

So he was the Kennedy of

10:17

France, of Europe, seven years

10:19

ago, but things are different now. And

10:23

the country is different. France is

10:25

different. It's moved rightward.

10:29

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that you all play Wurdle. I have something

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exciting to show you. It's the

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Wurdle Archive. Oh, and you

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that has ever existed. There's like a thousand

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that's really great. What date would you pick? May 17th.

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more at nytimes.com/games. You don't understand about

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what Wurdle means to us. We need to take a

12:36

selfie. So,

12:41

Roger, you mentioned that when Macron first came

12:43

to power, he beat the far right, which

12:45

of course he did again just two years

12:47

ago. But since then, the

12:50

country has changed. How has it

12:52

changed? Well, there's been

12:54

a drift to the right, as France

12:56

has faced many problems. Of

12:59

course, there was COVID, and then that

13:01

went straight into the war in Ukraine,

13:03

and that sent prices soaring,

13:05

high inflation. A

13:07

lot of people in France are struggling to get to

13:10

the end of the month. And

13:12

a feeling that you've seen in

13:14

many Western democracies that in what

13:17

France calls la periphery or

13:19

the periphery, i.e.

13:21

outside the big wired

13:24

capitals of the knowledge economy, there's

13:27

a whole group of people who feel

13:29

largely forgotten, who

13:32

feel alienated from the cultural values

13:34

of the cities, who

13:36

feel almost invisible at times.

13:39

And that has

13:41

generated a huge amount

13:43

of frustration. And so people have been wanting to

13:45

look outside the traditional

13:47

parties and toward a

13:50

party that, for them,

13:52

expresses that anger. And

13:54

that has been overwhelmingly the

13:57

national rally, and it has benefited from...

14:00

from those emotions. Right,

14:02

and you said not only the situation on

14:04

the ground in France had changed, you said

14:06

also that the far right had changed.

14:09

Yes, Marine Le Pan in the 15

14:12

years or so that she's been leading

14:14

the party has rebranded it,

14:17

not only rebranded it by changing its

14:19

name from the National Front to

14:21

the National Rally, but she

14:23

got rid of several basic tenets

14:25

of the party under her

14:28

father, who founded the party in 1972,

14:30

that is Jean-Marie Le Pan,

14:32

who was an out and out racist,

14:35

was an out and out anti-Semite.

14:38

It was a racist, anti-Semiticic,

14:41

anti-immigrant party that came

14:43

out of the

14:46

World War II quasi-fascist right.

14:50

Under Marine Le Pan, she not

14:52

only expunged completely the anti-Semitism to

14:54

the point that some

14:56

people now regard it as

14:58

the most pro-Israel, pro-Jewish party

15:00

in France, but it

15:03

also got rid of, for example, it used to

15:05

say it would exit the European Union. It got

15:08

rid of that. It said it would

15:10

exit the Euro currency. It

15:12

got rid of that. It toned down its

15:14

language. Marine Le Pan was always

15:17

smiling. Every effort has

15:19

been made to say, you don't

15:21

need to be afraid of us. We're just like

15:23

any other party. We've been through a

15:25

makeover. And certainly

15:27

one of the most powerful

15:30

demonstrations of the ways in

15:32

which the National Rally has

15:34

changed has been the decision

15:36

to entrust its future to

15:39

a very young man who has

15:41

taken French politics by storm. Young

15:46

voters in France are expressing enthusiasm

15:48

for a rising star of French

15:50

politics. New York of the party,

15:52

Jordan Bardella. The 28-year-old

15:54

Jordan Bardella. He's

16:00

a good-looking, impeccably dressed guy

16:02

who has a very even

16:05

tone. Who

16:12

has been intensely coached

16:15

on how to present himself

16:17

to the media. And

16:23

he's done so extremely successfully.

16:30

He has a very big TikTok presence. He

16:34

eats candy on TikTok, even though it's become

16:36

a big deal. People say, you know, I'm

16:38

eating candy like Jordan Mandela. I think he

16:40

has a lot of ideas for young people.

16:43

He's speaking out for young people on

16:45

our future. And one of the striking

16:48

phenomena of French politics in the last year

16:50

or so has been a pretty

16:52

strong shift among the young demographic

16:55

from about 18 to 28 toward

16:59

the national rally. It's become

17:02

a very popular party among young people

17:04

in France. And of course, Bardella, being

17:07

28 years old, he draws that vote.

17:12

Marine Lapin says Jordan Bardella will

17:15

be Prime Minister if the right-wing

17:17

group wins enough votes at the

17:19

upcoming French general election. So

17:29

this is a remarkable rise for this

17:31

young politician, this political figure, who it

17:33

sounds like has not just made

17:36

the national rally a kind of palatable

17:38

option to vote for. He's

17:40

actually made it really popular. Yeah, I

17:42

think he's not only energized people who

17:45

were already supporters of the national rally.

17:48

He has brought in part

17:50

of the center that was

17:53

moving in that direction, the

17:55

traditional conservative right. And

17:57

Bardella has succeeded in a very good position.

18:00

bringing that about. So what

18:03

happens to Macron's government

18:05

if the National Rally actually wins the

18:07

most votes? What do we

18:10

think that government and its policies would actually

18:12

look like? Well, I

18:14

think that they will push

18:17

hard to reinforce

18:19

the police side with

18:21

greater security, as they always put it,

18:23

in the country. And

18:26

they would try to push through

18:28

some of their anti-immigrant program. They

18:30

would reduce the

18:32

immigrant presence in France, whether

18:35

by introducing borders in

18:37

France, you know, selective controls at certain borders.

18:39

He's been pretty vague about it, but they

18:41

want what they call a second border. What

18:44

they don't want is somebody who

18:46

is, let's say,

18:49

a legal immigrant in Italy crossing

18:51

over to France under the

18:54

Schengen arrangement, whereby this person could

18:56

just come to France. And so

18:59

they want to make it

19:01

easier to throw immigrants who

19:03

have infringed on the

19:06

law or have committed a crime

19:08

or even just insulted the republic

19:10

in some way, easier to throw

19:12

them out of France. They want to impose

19:14

a ban on

19:17

the use of the Muslim headscarf

19:19

in public everywhere. You know,

19:21

in terms of governing, they have a model at this

19:23

point. They have a ban in Hungary, they have what

19:25

Kaczynski did in Poland, and they

19:28

talk about it. They want to begin

19:31

to chip away at the

19:33

independent power of the

19:35

judiciary. And they're

19:37

talking also about the fact

19:39

that state media is

19:42

too hostile to the right and needs to be shut

19:44

down. So they're going to

19:46

go at the judiciary, they're going to go at the

19:48

media, they're going to

19:50

go at the counterbalancing

19:52

institutions within the French

19:54

Republic in much the same way

19:56

that has already been done in

19:59

other societies. that moved in an

20:01

illiberal direction. It's interesting,

20:04

there's almost a playbook in Europe now, right?

20:06

There's a lot of these populists who no

20:08

longer want to leave the European Union. It's

20:10

like they want to change the European Union

20:13

from the inside. Yes, I think that's

20:15

true. So maybe this

20:17

is not so much a referendum on

20:20

Macron as a person. Maybe he has

20:22

actually called a referendum on the

20:24

very idea of a liberal

20:26

democracy in France, you know, a

20:28

democracy that is about protecting the

20:31

rights of minorities, protecting things like

20:34

an independent press and an independent judiciary,

20:36

but also one that

20:38

is very pro-European, because that's not just

20:41

Macron's DNA. It's also actually

20:44

very much an integral part of

20:46

France's DNA since World

20:48

War II. Yeah, I never

20:50

thought the National Rally would come to

20:52

power in France, but the

20:55

zeitgeist has changed. At

20:57

post-war, it was all

20:59

about avoiding a repetition of

21:01

the wars that devastated Europe

21:03

in the first half of the 20th century,

21:05

and the European Union grew out

21:07

of that. It was a peace magnet. It

21:10

was a way to say, we're going to remove borders

21:13

between countries. We're going to make it impossible

21:15

to go to war. We're going to fuse

21:17

our iron and steel industries. And

21:19

that spirit reigned right through the end

21:21

of the Cold War, but

21:24

one has to just recognize, I think,

21:26

the fact that there is a feeling

21:28

that Western democracies, including the United States,

21:30

have failed a lot of

21:33

people over the last three decades. They've

21:38

failed them with growing

21:40

inequality. They've failed them by failing

21:42

to control borders. They've failed in

21:45

many ways, and this has given rise to the

21:48

nation resurgent, the nation resurgent.

21:51

That is the epoch we

21:53

are living in right now.

21:55

It's just possible that this

21:57

anger that is present, has

21:59

to come out and

22:01

that France is going to

22:03

find itself part of that. Roger,

22:10

thank you very much. Thank

22:12

you, Katrin. We'll

22:22

be right back. Join

22:30

CNN as President Biden and former

22:32

President Trump meet for their first

22:34

highly anticipated debate of this election

22:36

season. Two candidates with two very

22:38

different visions for America's future come

22:41

together on one stage the way

22:43

only CNN can bring it to

22:45

you. Jake Tapper and Dana Bash

22:47

moderate the CNN presidential debate Thursday,

22:50

June 27th at 9

22:52

p.m. Eastern, live on CNN

22:54

and streaming on Max. Here's

22:58

what else you need to know today. On

23:01

Tuesday, the Kenyan government deployed the

23:03

military after protesters who were furious

23:05

over a package of tax increases

23:07

stormed the parliament building in the

23:09

capital, Nairobi. The protesters climbed

23:11

in windows and set fire to the entrance

23:13

of the building. The police

23:16

responded by firing tear gas and guns.

23:19

At least five people were reported dead from

23:21

gunshot wounds and more than 30 others appeared

23:23

to be wounded. The

23:25

turmoil has shaken Kenya, which has long been

23:28

an anchor of stability in East Africa. And

23:32

in a closely watched democratic primary,

23:34

Congressman Jamal Bowman of New York

23:36

was defeated on Tuesday night. Bowman,

23:40

the subject of yesterday's episode, was

23:42

the target of a multi-million dollar

23:44

campaign by groups supporting Israel. They

23:47

wanted to punish him for harshly criticizing

23:49

Israel's response to October 7th. Bowman

23:53

is an outspoken progressive and lost to

23:55

George Latimer, a more moderate Democrat. The

23:58

race became the most expensive house in the world.

24:00

primary in history. Today's

24:05

episode was produced by Claire Tennisgatter Will

24:08

Reed and Eric Krupke. It

24:10

was edited by Devon Taylor, contains

24:12

original music by Marion Lozano and

24:14

Pat McCusker, and was engineered by

24:16

Chris Wood. Our theme music

24:19

is by Jim Brannberg and Ben Landfroek of

24:21

Wanda Lee. That's

24:34

it for The Daily. I'm Katrin Benholt.

24:36

See you tomorrow. Nordstrom

24:45

is here to help you discover your

24:47

summer wardrobe. Whether you're packing for a

24:49

getaway, dressing for celebration, or refreshing your

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office style, it's the place to help

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you feel good and look your best.

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Shopping there is fun thanks to

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freestyle help from their in-store and

25:00

online stylists. And with on-site alterations

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and free shipping returns, it's easy

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too. Discover your summer. Just stop

25:06

by your favorite Nordstrom or shop

25:08

online at nordstrom.com.