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it's good for you. Hello

1:31

and welcome to The Stand with Eamonn

1:33

Dunphy. Now

1:43

the recent European elections saw

1:46

a pronounced shift to the

1:48

right across Europe and

1:50

in France, there was a

1:53

dramatic response from president Macron.

1:55

He decided to stop the

1:57

parliament and call parliamentary elections.

2:00

It was as if he was saying to the French

2:02

people, have you lost your mind? And

2:04

this was almost a rebuke. He got

2:06

his answer yesterday, the first round of

2:09

a two round contest to decide the 577

2:11

seats in the parliament. And

2:16

the result was dramatic. And we're

2:18

joined now by Laura Marlowe

2:20

for long. The Paris correspondent of The

2:23

Irish Times, still a contributor to The

2:25

Irish Times on all things

2:27

French. Laura, thank you very much for joining

2:29

us. It's a pleasure, Inan. Yes, and for

2:32

us too. Laura, the

2:34

results yesterday were

2:36

shocking. Marine Le

2:38

Pen's party national rally,

2:41

which is extreme right,

2:43

hard right, were by far the most

2:45

popular party. And there was also a

2:48

strong result for what could

2:50

be called the hard left.

2:52

Jean-Luc Melicon, a long time

2:54

leftist and a formidable

2:57

French politician also. Tell

2:59

us where Macron stands

3:01

now and indeed where France stands,

3:03

because the second round is next

3:05

Sunday and that's when everything

3:07

will be decided. That's

3:09

right, Inan. Basically,

3:12

the Marine Le Pen's national

3:14

rally, which we use the French initials

3:17

RN, got a

3:19

third of the vote. A third of

3:21

French people voted for the extreme right,

3:23

which is pretty amazing. When

3:25

you realize that last night, the

3:28

RN got 10.6 million votes. That

3:32

is more than triple what they got

3:34

seven years ago in the 2017 presidential

3:36

election. So

3:39

they have more than tripled their vote

3:41

in seven years. They even increased the

3:43

vote since the European

3:45

election on June 9th. So

3:47

between June 9th and June 30th, they

3:50

added three million, nearly three million

3:52

more votes. They got 7.7 million

3:54

votes on June 9th and

3:56

10.6 million on the election. night

4:00

on June 30th. So, they are clearly on

4:02

a roll. As

4:04

you said, the left-wing coalition, which

4:06

is going by the name the

4:08

New Popular Front, got 28%, and

4:12

Macron's centrist coalition got 20%. This

4:16

means that Macron will lose about

4:19

two-thirds of the seats that he had

4:21

in the outgoing National Assembly. He'll go

4:23

from 250 seats

4:25

down to something like about 85 seats. So,

4:28

it was really, when

4:30

people say it was a

4:32

Karman-Kazi dissolution, that's a pretty

4:34

accurate description of it. Yes,

4:37

and there was an increased turnout as

4:39

well, a dramatically increased turnout, wasn't there?

4:42

Yes, absolutely. It was the biggest turnout

4:44

since 1997, at nearly 67% participation. So,

4:50

that shows how strongly people feel

4:53

about this election and how polarized

4:55

the country is. And

4:57

in the second round, and

4:59

in France there's always a second round,

5:02

we've been here before in a

5:04

way, not quite as emphatically when

5:07

you look at the Le Pen

5:09

situation, but her father, Jean-Marie Le

5:11

Pen, finished second. He had a

5:14

run-off. I'm not sure which Chirac

5:16

I think it was, but you'll

5:18

know it was

5:21

2002 exactly, against Chirac, April 2002.

5:24

And what happens traditionally is

5:26

that the left and

5:28

the centre combine to keep Le

5:30

Pen out. Is that

5:32

an option this time? And particularly,

5:35

I'm thinking, you might explain to

5:37

us about Jordan Bardella, who

5:39

would be the new Prime Minister if

5:41

they get a majority next Sunday, and

5:44

the Assembly becomes, is

5:46

in their hands. Jordan Bardella, who's

5:48

28 years of age, working class

5:50

boy, he will be the

5:52

Prime Minister, or maybe the Prime

5:54

Minister. Let me take

5:57

those one at a time. The first question

5:59

is whether... the rest of

6:01

the French body

6:03

politic will get its act together

6:05

between in the next six, seven

6:08

days and fair

6:10

barrage, bar the way for

6:13

the national rally. As

6:15

you said, Éamon, when Le

6:18

Pen-Perre made it to the

6:20

runoff in 2002, the rest

6:22

of the French parties banded

6:24

together and they agreed that

6:26

in the event of three-way races, the

6:28

French called Triandular, the least well-placed

6:33

of what they called the Republican

6:35

parties, i.e. everything but the far

6:37

right, would stand down. And

6:41

the votes would go then to whether it

6:43

was a socialist or a center right

6:45

or whoever, it would go to the

6:48

other candidate. Now, if they can do

6:50

that, they can limit the power of

6:52

the extreme right. The

6:54

whole question is whether Marine Le

6:57

Pen gets an absolute majority, i.e.

7:00

50% or more of the National

7:02

Assembly or whether she gets a

7:04

relative majority, i.e. something like 35,

7:07

40, even 45% of the Assembly.

7:10

Now, if it's a relative majority,

7:14

basically, it's a hung parliament. Nobody

7:16

can pass legislation. If it's an

7:18

absolute majority, Jordan Bardella,

7:21

as you say, this 28-year-old from

7:23

the immigrant suburbs, he will be

7:25

the Prime Minister of France. And

7:28

he said last night that he

7:30

will govern in cohabitation with Macron,

7:32

which means that basically all Macron

7:35

could do is he'd have some

7:37

authority over defense policy and foreign

7:39

policy. But even that, Bardella

7:42

and Le Pen are saying they are going to

7:44

limit, they want to run the

7:47

country. So, the problem with

7:49

the Republican front, which

7:51

if these other parties had

7:53

their act together could limit

7:55

the damage, is that

7:57

they're divided three ways. Macron Paul

7:59

made a very ambiguous statement last

8:02

night. He said that they would

8:05

step aside for what

8:07

he called democratic or

8:09

republican candidates. Now

8:11

this is ambiguous because he

8:14

doesn't seem to be including

8:16

Jean-Luc Mélanchon's France

8:18

Unbound. He doesn't seem to be

8:20

including the left-wing coalition. Or maybe what

8:22

it means is on a case-by-case basis,

8:25

if it's a socialist, a sort

8:27

of social democrat, then the Macronist

8:29

candidate would stand down and let

8:32

the other guy win. But if

8:34

it's a Mélanchon, France Unbound candidate,

8:36

then in those cases they would

8:38

not step

8:41

out of the contest. So

8:45

if it's a case-by-case basis like

8:47

that, it's probably

8:50

not going to work. The other thing

8:52

that centrist politicians are saying,

8:54

a lot of them are saying, neither the

8:56

extreme left nor the extreme right.

8:59

So they are unfairly, in

9:01

my view, classifying Mélanchon and

9:03

the far left with

9:06

the French rice. They're saying

9:08

it's plaguing cholera. We want nothing to

9:10

do with either of them. There

9:13

are expected to be more than 300 three-way

9:15

races next week. This

9:18

is in part a result of the high

9:20

participation. So there's

9:22

still a lot to play for. The

9:24

fact is that the national rally

9:26

will have the largest number of seats.

9:28

That is for certain. That is indisputable.

9:31

It's just a question, will they get

9:33

an absolute

9:35

majority and a government or not?

9:38

Jordan Bardella says he will not

9:40

be prime minister unless he has

9:42

an absolute majority. He's basically saying

9:44

it would be a full variant.

9:46

It would be gridlock. Why

9:49

should I discredit the national rally by

9:51

getting involved in something like that? So

9:53

then, in that case, who would

9:55

Macron name prime minister? Who

9:58

could govern this country? It becomes a... Yes,

10:01

and Macron has three years of

10:03

his presidency left. You said to

10:06

me earlier before we started recording,

10:09

Lara, that this was like the

10:11

day after Brexit or indeed the

10:13

day after Trump's election to

10:15

be President of the United States. In

10:18

other words, France is in shock to

10:20

some extent because Le Pen also,

10:22

they have a certain

10:24

attitude to European Union as

10:27

well, which is rather radical.

10:30

Very much so. I mean, they have

10:32

softened it to the extent that they

10:34

no longer say they would withdraw from

10:36

the EU. They no longer say

10:39

they would withdraw from the Euro group. But

10:42

they could be expected to

10:45

ally themselves with Victor Orban's

10:47

new group that Orban announced

10:49

over the weekend. He calls

10:51

them the Patriots, group of

10:53

Patriots. And Victor Orban is

10:55

in his cups. He's

10:57

predicting that by the

11:00

end of this year, what he

11:02

calls patriotic majorities will

11:04

be in power throughout the Western world.

11:06

And he means that Marine Le Pen

11:08

basically will be running France and Donald Trump

11:10

will be running the US. So it's a

11:13

very frightening prospect. It means in terms of

11:15

the European Union, it

11:17

would mean probably an end of EU aid

11:21

for Ukraine. Yes. That's

11:23

what Orban wants. Le Pen has gone

11:26

softly, softly on that lately. So has

11:28

Bardella. But when you

11:30

realize that the national rally

11:32

has a woman who has

11:35

been basically called a Russian

11:37

spy as an advisor in

11:40

the European Parliament, a woman called

11:42

Tamara Volokhova, who

11:44

has basically specialized in

11:47

sending Le

11:50

Penist members of the European

11:52

Parliament to Crimea and to

11:54

Russia and twinned extreme

11:57

right wing towns in France with

11:59

Russia. Russian towns and so

12:02

on and so forth. And, you know, this

12:04

is at a time when the National Rally

12:06

says they would not

12:08

let dual nationals have sensitive

12:11

jobs. And yet they have

12:13

a dual national Franco-Russian running

12:16

their relations with Russia. She's

12:18

on the Foreign Affairs Commission

12:20

for Security and Defense in

12:22

the European Parliament. So it

12:24

would be devastating for help

12:27

for Ukraine. I

12:29

think probably the worst result, I mean,

12:32

it's devastating for Europe and for everybody.

12:34

But on the home

12:36

front, domestically, Jordan Bardella said

12:38

a week ago that if

12:40

they come to power, they

12:42

will end the

12:44

birthright, the Jus Soleil, which means

12:46

that anyone born in France has

12:49

a right to French citizenship, although

12:51

you still have to ask for

12:53

it within a year of attaining

12:56

adulthood. But there's

12:59

a poll in February of this year

13:01

that showed that 65% of the French

13:03

want to do away with this right

13:05

to citizenship for people born in France.

13:07

The reason they want to do it,

13:10

of course, is that African and Asian

13:12

and African and Arab immigrants

13:14

have children and those children who are

13:16

born in France have the right to

13:18

French citizenship. So they want to stop

13:20

that. It's discrimination. It's

13:22

discrimination on the basis of

13:24

race, basically. They want

13:27

to discriminate among French citizens

13:29

between those who are white,

13:32

d'souche française, born of French

13:34

origin, and those

13:36

who are non-white. That's what

13:39

it boils down to. Yes, and so

13:41

much of the drift to the right

13:43

across Europe is related to immigration. It

13:45

is really at the top

13:48

of the agenda for so

13:50

many parties. Italy would be

13:52

another example. The

13:54

United Kingdom immigration there is

13:57

also now a contentious issue.

14:00

And even here, there is stuff

14:02

going on, what we would call

14:04

the far right. They're tiny and

14:07

they're contained, but we don't really matter

14:10

in the sense that we're small, but

14:12

France, Italy, Germany, the

14:14

rise of the AFD in Germany

14:16

as well is related to that.

14:19

So the US, the US, the

14:21

US, of course, rises due to

14:24

immigration as an issue. And immigration

14:27

is very often inflated, exaggerated. I mean,

14:29

to hear the I keep wanting to

14:31

say National Front because they were called

14:34

that for decades. But the national rally

14:36

to hear them speak, you

14:38

know, people are being run out of

14:41

their homes and, you know, immigrants are

14:43

taking over the country. A lot of

14:45

them believe in the great replacement theory,

14:48

which is a plot to

14:51

replace the white European

14:53

population with blacks

14:55

and Arabs. So there's

14:57

an obsession over it. And, you

14:59

know, Bardella and Marine Le Pen

15:01

in their speech are

15:04

very careful what they say

15:06

now. But if you listen

15:08

to their voters, it's all

15:10

about it is really hateful

15:12

hatred of immigrants, of foreigners,

15:14

of the other. Yes, the

15:16

great replacement theory is it's

15:18

an American conspiracy theory that's

15:20

widely popular online and read

15:23

internationally. Actually, I hate to

15:25

say the same. It's European.

15:28

It came from a guy called, yeah,

15:30

this is very often forgotten. It came

15:32

from a guy called Honore Camus, who's

15:35

alive and well and living in central

15:37

France. And he is the

15:40

theoretician of Le Grand Place Mont,

15:42

the great replacement. So like many

15:44

things, good and bad, it comes

15:46

from France originally. Just to give

15:48

us our listeners, particularly our younger

15:50

listeners, the sense of Marine Le

15:52

Pen. She has rehabilitated,

15:55

if you like, what

15:57

was the national front. Her

15:59

father. Jean-Marie Le Pen

16:01

was an out-and-out

16:04

racist. He was also

16:06

a Nazi apologist, or

16:08

they were his preference. He

16:11

was a really serious and

16:13

almost untouchable figure

16:16

of the right, very extreme.

16:19

And she has cleaned up that

16:21

party. We're told she's got

16:24

rid of some of the more extreme

16:26

people in it. They present

16:28

now as something different. But

16:31

her father would be, you know,

16:34

you would have thought unelectable when he was running

16:36

20, 25, 30 years ago. Yes,

16:41

Jean-Marie Le Pen co-founded the National

16:43

Front in 1972. He'd

16:47

been a paratrooper in Algeria.

16:49

He tortured Algerians when

16:51

he was in the French army. There

16:56

were two former members of the

16:58

Waffen-SS, of the French division of

17:00

the Waffen-SS. There

17:05

were two former French

17:07

members of the Nazi Waffen-SS

17:09

among the founding members of

17:11

the National Front. There were

17:13

also several people who had

17:16

served in Marichal Pétain's collaboration

17:18

as government during the Second

17:20

World War. And as you say,

17:22

Le Pen was a Holocaust

17:24

denier. One of Le Pen's

17:26

most famous quotes was, who has ever seen a

17:29

gas chamber? And he said

17:31

that the Holocaust was a

17:33

detail of history. Now

17:35

Marie Le Pen started rising in the

17:37

ranks of the National Front during the

17:40

2000s. And

17:43

by 2011, she became the leader of

17:45

the party and she decided she eventually

17:48

expelled her own father. It was a

17:50

Shakespearean drama of her throwing her

17:52

father out of the party. And

17:54

she decided she would detoxify it.

17:56

That was the verb that was

17:58

used. She distanced herself

18:01

from the anti-Semitism, which

18:03

the extreme right was known for,

18:05

to such an extent that it's

18:07

quite stunning in this election, Serge

18:10

Klatfeld, who's a Nazi hunter, has

18:12

said that in the second round, if it's a

18:15

question of voting for the far left or the

18:17

far right, he'll vote for the far right. Alan

18:20

Finkelkraut, who's a Jewish

18:22

philosopher, has said

18:24

the same thing, that it's all right to vote

18:26

for the extreme right. Now, I

18:29

must say that there are French Jews who are divided

18:31

on this. I have a Jewish

18:34

friend who's a journalist who sent

18:36

me a text message after the

18:38

European election saying they're going to

18:40

reestablish direct trains to Auschwitz. And

18:42

it was a sick joke, but

18:45

a lot of Jews feel very insecure and unhappy

18:47

about this as well. So,

18:49

Marine Le Pen got rid of the

18:51

anti-Semitism. She did not get rid of

18:53

the Islamophobia. That is a very, very

18:55

strong element of the party's ideology. She

19:00

changed the name in 2018 from

19:03

Fond-Nacional to Ha-Sam-de-Mond-Nacional,

19:06

all to make the party acceptable.

19:08

And she had, I must give

19:12

her credit for having political

19:14

talent. She spotted Jordan Bardella

19:17

and coached him, had him coached,

19:19

and sort of brought him up

19:21

from a 16-year-old teenage

19:24

militant in the party to

19:27

the point where she says he will

19:29

be our prime minister if we win

19:31

an absolute majority. So,

19:33

it's quite an amazing comeback.

19:36

She has made it to the

19:38

runoff in the presidential election twice

19:41

already. Macron does not

19:43

want to be succeeded by Marine Le

19:45

Pen. Some people think

19:47

that's why he conceived

19:49

this harebrained scheme to

19:52

dissolve the National Assembly and

19:54

hold a snap election because he's hoping

19:57

that the National Rally will discredit them.

19:59

themselves that they'll make a huge mess

20:01

of everything. And that in three years

20:03

from now, when we're due for another

20:05

presidential election, then France

20:08

will choose someone else. A lot of

20:10

people think that Mélanchon

20:13

is making the same calculation. He

20:15

knows he cannot be prime minister.

20:17

The new popular front

20:19

cannot possibly win an absolute majority

20:21

next week. So

20:23

what he's really hoping is that the

20:26

national rally will make a mess or

20:28

that we'll have gridlock and chaos and

20:32

have a nose, perhaps street fighting, whatever.

20:34

And that in three years from now,

20:36

people will elect President Jean-Luc Mélanchon.

20:39

Yes, and there was trouble, which

20:41

would say in some French cities

20:44

last night, particularly in Paris, but

20:46

it wasn't on a scale that

20:48

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20:50

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mango, lemon and mandarin orange.

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My favorite is the wild berry because

22:33

I just love a berry. So if

22:35

you're like me and you're drinking water

22:37

all day, then try splash refresher. It's

22:39

going to absolutely change your water game

22:41

and it's good for you. We

22:44

all belong outside. We're drawn to nature,

22:46

whether it's the recorded sounds of the

22:48

ocean we doze off to or the

22:50

succulents that adorn our homes. Nature

22:52

makes all of our lives, well, better.

22:55

Despite all this, we often go about

22:57

our busy lives removed from it, but

23:00

the outdoors is closer than we realize. With

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AllTrails, you can discover trails nearby

23:05

and explore confidently. With offline maps

23:07

and on-trail navigation, download the free

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app today and make the most

23:11

of your summer with AllTrails. Just

23:17

to ask about Macron,

23:19

he came out of nowhere. Is

23:22

he going back to nowhere? Because

23:24

he does seem... I know

23:26

that many people had great hopes for him.

23:29

Is he a rather vacuous figure

23:31

now? He said his big thing

23:33

was, I'm neither left nor right.

23:36

But the question is, and

23:39

he has tried to play on the world

23:41

stage, but his judgment,

23:43

you'd have to question in

23:45

terms of his response to the disappointments

23:47

of the European election, which was felt

23:50

by many leaders. Certainly. I

23:53

would certainly question his judgment. In

23:55

fact, I'd say he's deluded.

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