00:00French voters do face a decisive choice on July 7th in that runoff that could see the
00:04country's first far-right government since the World War II Nazi occupation, or perhaps
00:09no majority emerging at all.
00:11We're going to talk more about this with Shirley Sitbon, who joins me now live from the National
00:15Assembly.
00:16Shirley, the different parties have about 24 hours to decide on their strategies for
00:19this second round.
00:20Do you think the left and the center can really block the wave of far-right MPs that's expected?
00:28They can try.
00:29It is impossible.
00:30On paper, it is possible.
00:32But the far-right will have its wave of MPs coming in anyway.
00:38The question is whether it will be an absolute majority or not.
00:42And the left and center want to block an absolute majority.
00:46That's their goal.
00:47So as you know, as we've said, the French legislative elections are not proportional.
00:52They're all different elections in 577 areas.
00:57And so as we come into the second round of voting, in many areas, you'll have three candidates.
01:04One candidate for the national rally, one candidate for the left, perhaps, one for the
01:08center.
01:09And the idea of the left and the center is to form a sort of alliance or a common front.
01:15They don't have a common program, common propositions.
01:18But they want to block the arrival of the national rally.
01:21So the idea is to drop out one of the candidates in every area, in every election.
01:27And that way, they hope to block the arrival of various national right MPs into parliament.
01:33Now the thing is, they don't all agree, as we've heard.
01:36And also, when centrists, for example, do drop out of the race, it doesn't mean their
01:40voters will vote for parties they don't necessarily back.
01:45So that's a whole question.
01:47And at the same time, while the far-right is having its own negotiations, its own strategy,
01:53and it's started talks with some people on the central right, hoping to get them in,
01:58to attract them, because now that they may have a government, well, that will be a whole
02:02different deal.
02:03And some people may be tempted on the center-right to join the far-right.
02:08That's what the far-right is hoping for.
02:10All right, Shirley.
02:11Thanks for that.
02:12That's Shirley Sitbon there reporting from the National Assembly in Paris.
Comments