Emmanuel Macron appeals to French electorate with ‘clear lurch to the right’ • FRANCE 24 English

Emmanuel Macron appeals to French electorate with ‘clear lurch to the right’ • FRANCE 24 English

like to go across to Arian Bain senior lecturer in French politics at North amria University good good afternoon rather thank you for joining us here on the program today what did you make of Emanuel macon’s speech was he successful in justifying his decision to dissolve parliament okay I have to say I only saw the first half an hour the DAT job then took over uh what what I saw first of all was the the overall message is me or the extremes it’s a kind of meor chaos um sorry uh you know if you want stability if you don’t want uh political uncertainty vote for me which was always going to be the the way uh it was going to frame this in terms of the speech personally I felt that it was far too long and it’s nothing new we’ve heard this before in this various uh interviews TV interviews in the past two months and again it’s a clear Lurch to the right with you know the focus on immigration on lity on on security so I’m not convinced that it will you know convince anyone and actually I I think he should uh he should move away from the campaign and he should let you know Gabriel atal and he should let the candidates uh do the campaign now if you forgive my uh football analogy it’s it’s like what a manager Lo loses the locker room you know and in that when that happens nobody really listen to you anymore and I think this is what has happened with macron last week we had a whole week really of maon talking because of the of the uh you know D D-Day Landing load of speeches a TV interview it’s always the same and is not listen to anymore so we could see where it’s going with this me or chaos me or the extremes vote for stability but I don’t think it was particularly uh inspiring but I only saw the first half an hour I didn’t hear the uh you know the question that journalists were were asking U I let me jump in that because we as our um International Affairs editor Angela diffley was saying basically what Emanuel Macon said yes it’s either going to be you vote for chaos or you vote for me and I’ll continue to do what I’ve been doing and this is the problem isn’t it yeah I think what what you know what what is needed and we didn’t have that in 2022 because the presidential campaign was curtailed because of the situation in Ukraine the Parliamentary campaign was also uh very minimal we never got a feeling of what do you want to do what is your vision for French society what is your vision what what are you trying to create so he he gave in in that speech this morning a lot of list a long you know list of items or of of topics that he’d like to tackle and reforms okay but why do you need to do those reforms what is the you know the overall vision and we still don’t have that so it might come with you know when the campaign starts properly but I I just felt this is reheated it’s it’s it’s more of the same and apart from saying me or the chaos you know what what does it bring what what new things does he bring and personally I didn’t see it this morning uh Aran we have less than 3 weeks to go I believe we have 18 days or so until the first round of the vote things can happen but let’s just for argument sake assume that the polls are going to be prove proven correct and that the far right does in fact make gains what happens then will Emanuel maon be able to to have a far right uh prime minister given that he he’s not good with with govern with coalitions in government well I mean there are two scenarios if the fs are right one is the far right winning an absolute majority so that would be 289 MPS currently they have 89 so it would be an extra 200 it’s difficult because the the electoral system is is very different from the European one it’s not proportional it’s two rounds there will be some kind of anti- far right uh you know Republican front but it’s not impossible if that’s the case then maon does not have a choice he will have to appoint a farri prime minister if he doesn’t want to do that then the only possible solution would be to resign and at the rate of things going dominant in France you know it might it might happen well he’s he’s ruled out resigning I want to ask you about the the possibility of the far-left also making gains because there is this loose leftwing Alliance for now but Emanuel Macon is trying to poke holes in that Alliance as well he sort of uh alluded to the fact that the France on B the farle uh party led by Jean M it could be is anti-Semitic based on certain statements that have been made I mean look you know it it will all be down to Numbers if we have an absolute majority either for the far right or for the left for the United left if it stays United then it it mcon will have no choice so the Prime Minister will either be far right or far left if there is no majority and we have a relative majority then it all depends on numbers if it’s a relative majority for his party or parties then it’s back to square one and we be in the same situation as now if the relative majority is for uh the national rally then will they manage to Hoover up enough you know me uh enough um NPS to to form an absolute majority if it’s the left who has a a relative majority then the same question will be asked so we Anything Can Happen indeed anything anything can happen but one thing Emanuel mcon said is he triggered this vote because he doesn’t want to give the far right the keys to the El Palace in 2027 but what for argument sake if the the far ride does come out on top uh in these parliamentary polls and then doesn’t really mess up and like what we’ve seen in Italy with Georgia money is Emanuel ma essentially normalizing the far right here is you’re totally right is because and and the idea that you would you would uh you know have a um sorry a a far-right prime minister and is bound to to to mess up I mean this this is so wrong on so many levels but yes it it it would be normaliz normalizing the the the the the far right and you know if the far right is is is you know half clever they would know this and they would make sure that during the next three years they don’t mess up too much so if that is the bet it’s it’s the most stupid bet I’ve ever heard so sorry for for being so blood we like your honesty but you know I mean I saw the polls yesterday and they were predicting a victory for for the far right but we don’t know if it would be an absolute majority in which case there will be a far-right prime minister unless maon resign or if it would be a a relative majority and then who knows what’s going to happen will there be all the other parties getting together to form their own majority because he can’t dissolve the National Assembly for another year or will we have some kind of technical government like Belgium has known or or Italy has known so it’s it’s it’s a big you know leap into into the unknown obviously for him the best scenario would be an absolute majority I don’t think he’s going to get it or a relative majority but then we we will have had all this Mayhem to basically go back to square one to end up where we were exactly Arian always a pleasure speaking to thank you very much for that thank you

The French president’s stump speech contained “nothing new”, Senior Lecturer in French Politics from Northumbria University Ariane Bogain told FRANCE 24. Emmanuel Macron once again framed the upcoming elections as a choice between himself and far-right chaos, Bogain explained, adding that the president’s lackluster performance showed a “clear lurch to the right with the focus on immigration, on laïcité and on security”.
#France #Macron #legislative elections

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