'Hazardous risk': Macron takes 'opponents by surprise', giving birth to left-wing Popular Front

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00:00Joining me on the set is Damien Lecomte, a political scientist and researcher from Paris's Sorbonne University.

00:06Is it time for the left to already be toasting?

00:10Do we really have confidence that this alliance will fare better than the previous one that we had seen seven months ago that

00:17collapsed, the Nupes, or noop, depending on how you pronounce it?

00:20Well, the fact that the left-wing parties

00:23succeeded to reach this alliance

00:25prove the gravity of the situation and the danger that the far-right is right now for the political life.

00:34What is quite different with this new alliance is that

00:39the hard left, the France on board, La France Insoumise, is not as dominant as it was before because the European elections...

00:45They have more seats.

00:47Yes, there are more seats, but they no longer have the majority of the seats.

00:53And so the Greens and the Socialists,

00:56the two of them, have the majority with the turn. And Jean-Luc Mélenchon is clearly no longer the

01:02leading candidate for Prime Minister. He is not as an obvious candidate as he was in 2022 because he has appeared to be a far

01:11more divisive figure and he is not as consensual as he could be in 2022.

01:17How indicative is this of the French public? On the one hand,

01:22we have the far-right national rally. If you listen to this Popular Front, they're the only viable alternative.

01:29But as you mentioned, there's a far-left element within there. Is the majority of the French public split between these two people?

01:39In the presidential election, there was a clear domination of

01:43three candidates. That was Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen for the far-right, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon for the far-left.

01:49Even if the left is more

01:51diverse now and more balanced between

01:55its more radical elements and its more moderate Greens and Socialists, it is clear that the

02:01blocs of the far-right and the left-wing are now in the European elections where the dominant forces are.

02:08Because the Macronist coalition has clearly declined in this election, so now

02:14it seems likely that the left-wing and the far-right are indeed going to be the two dominant forces.

02:21But the Macronist centre is going to try to

02:26interfere in this duel. And of course in France,

02:29we have that two-round voting system where we can sometimes see some surprises in round one only to perhaps be

02:37corrected in round two, if you will. Corrected in the sense that maybe people vote for their preference in round one,

02:44trying to get leaders to shift their politics for round two. How do you think this plays out in round one?

02:49Well, what is interesting here is that this majority system for a long time has been an obstacle for the far-right to

02:57have more seats in Parliament. But maybe we have reached the point that it's going to boost the election of more

03:04far-right members in the National Assembly.

03:07What is going to be very, very difficult for the Macronist candidates, for the

03:11presidential coalition candidates, is precisely to reach the second round. Because as we can see in the European elections,

03:17they will have difficulty to

03:19reach the second round, to be first or second in the majority of constituencies.

03:24So at this point, of course, things can evolve. But at this point,

03:29we can expect that the majority of second rounds will be between

03:33far-right and the left-wing coalitions. And maybe in some

03:38constituencies, the Macronists will try to be in the second round.

03:42But it's going to be more difficult for them this time. So did Macron misplay his hand here?

03:48Well, Emmanuel Macron clearly

03:50opts to

03:52provoke a rally with a flag effect and to take his opponents by surprise.

03:57But probably he did not expect the left to achieve a new alliance

04:03like that. So yes, it is clear that the president has taken a very

04:09hazardous risk. All right, Damien, thank you very much for your time. Damien Lecomte from Sorbonne University. Thank you.

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