00:00We're going to break this down a bit more with Angela Diffley who joins me on the set.
00:03So, Angela, here we are looking at the national rally that could possibly be on course for
00:07this absolute majority.
00:08We heard there a bit about these efforts to try and stop that happening.
00:11Tell us a bit more about that.
00:12Yeah.
00:13One thing we should point out, it's just been announced that Macron is holding an emergency
00:18meeting at the Elysée.
00:20However, you look at these results, it is a disaster for Macron and for his political
00:25center party.
00:27As to this idea of tactical voting and strategic pulling out of candidates, where there are
00:34three candidates, as we heard there from Eliza, the one with the best chance of beating the
00:40far right candidate is going to stay in and there will be arrangements made with other
00:46parties for the one with the least chance to pull out.
00:50That depends on them cooperating, which is not quite as straightforward as that.
00:54This is people's personal fiefdoms.
00:56They're not always that easy to give up on it.
01:00Where there is a straightforward duel, where you have a far left or a far right candidate,
01:07that is proving very problematic.
01:08We'll talk about that in a second.
01:10But just to look at this idea of candidates pulling out, not all parties have been clear
01:16on whether they will pull out their candidates.
01:19The left bloc has said unequivocally, we will urge our candidates who are in the second
01:26round, if they don't have a good chance of beating a far right candidate, to pull out
01:31and we urge our voters not to vote under any circumstances for a far right candidate.
01:37Other parties have been much less clear.
01:40The mainstream right wing Republicans, who are reduced to quite a small number of MPs
01:44now, they have said we're leaving it up to voters, which many are reading as a code for
01:49go ahead and vote for the RN if you want to.
01:53Some of the centre right parties, the smaller parties that were allied with Macron are saying
01:58don't vote for the far left or the far right.
02:01And Macron himself has been a little vague.
02:05We've heard almost nothing from him.
02:07A written statement came out last night in which he said on a case by case basis, people
02:13should judge and vote for the most democratic Republican moderate candidate they have a
02:21choice to vote for.
02:22Right.
02:23The big question is, is all of this kind of strategising actually going to work?
02:27Well, the other thing is that French voters are getting fed up of it.
02:31On numerous occasions, they have been asked to play this game.
02:34It is called a Republican front.
02:37And the idea is to unite and do anything to stop the far right.
02:40And it's pretty unlikely.
02:43I think this time that very many French voters will heed it.
02:46They will do what they have decided to do.
02:50It's also a difficult choice because in that left wing bloc, it's not that there are a
02:55few far left candidates.
02:57It is that it is dominated by a far left party and very many voters saying I am being asked
03:03to choose between the plague and cholera.
03:06I don't want either of these candidates.
03:09On the far left is our candidates who have been extremely anti-police in their rhetoric,
03:15who are judged by many to be far too lax on law and order, which has been a huge issue
03:20in this campaign.
03:21Some of them economically are pretty anti-capitalists.
03:24So very many people are unhappy with that choice.
03:28Some will simply choose not to make the choice and will abstain.
03:31Right.
03:32So it looks like one very possible alternative here could be a hung parliament.
03:37What would that mean?
03:39That's worth talking about as well because the choice really is between perhaps an absolute
03:43majority on the far right or a very unstable arrangement because there will be not a full
03:52majority for anyone and it will lead to, we can see there what might happen.
03:58You can imagine in a hung parliament after the second round how those seats might be
04:02redistributed and what will happen is an unstable government which might topple at any
04:08time if there is a vote of confidence.
04:11Macron has said he will not resign as president.
04:14Even if he did resign, a new president cannot dissolve parliament and so you have a very
04:20difficult situation where you have no stable government and effectively political gridlock.
04:26Nothing can be passed.
04:27No legislation can be passed and at any moment the government could topple which leads to
04:32instability in the money markets.
04:34So however you look at it, the French people have got a very difficult choice ahead of
04:38them.
04:39They certainly do.
04:40All right, Angela, thanks so much for that.
04:41We'll be checking back in with you throughout the day here on France 24.
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