00:00In spite of this three-way run-off, which shouldn't have happened at all, we were able
00:15to pull through.
00:16And I would like to thank all the parties of the left who understood the purpose of
00:20this approach.
00:21And indeed, there are men and women on the left who voted, even though they are not from
00:29the left.
00:30They wanted to make sure that the result should be unchallengeable.
00:34But we are only part of the country here.
00:42Our performance is a source of satisfaction, but also it bestows upon us a new responsibility
00:51of course.
00:52We are happy that we were able to shun aside the far-right.
00:58And with the candidates who stepped down, who decided to block the far-right, and because
01:07of the high turnout, we were able to not so much set aside the far-right, but put it in
01:16a minority position in the National Assembly.
01:19And the second result is the defeat of the outgoing majority.
01:26They will lose dozens of seats in Parliament in spite of all the efforts made by the left
01:35to prevent it from being defeated by the far-right.
01:39And then there's this new momentum of the new People's Front, the united left, which
01:48will bring together the largest political groups in the National Assembly.
01:53But we cannot just leave it at that.
01:56We have just run a campaign, and many around the country alongside me could see the challenges
02:05of the French.
02:06We could see that purchasing power has been deteriorating for months.
02:11There were retired women who simply could not make ends meet, families who had no access
02:17to medical care.
02:19I saw people whose daily lives are made impossible by challenging conditions of transportation
02:30and housing.
02:31Unless we hear their voices, their message, we will not be up to the task.
02:37It would be easy just to look at the figures and be happy about that.
02:42A serious responsibility bestows upon us.
02:46And this is why the new People's Front should realise what it is it needs to do now.
02:53It is the strongest party, the largest party at the National Assembly.
02:57It doesn't have an absolute majority.
02:59As we speak, we can say we know it has a relative majority.
03:07We will not find much support elsewhere, but what we should do, what it should do, is meet
03:16its obligations and bring pressure to bear on all the necessary fronts.
03:25What was it I fought for, what was it I stood for over the past few days?
03:32We should have price controls, especially the price of gas.
03:37Gas went up 11% in a matter of hours.
03:43This should be index-linked, prices should be controlled, healthcare should be regulated,
03:49the retirement reform should be challenged, and this is what we have to address.
03:55These are the issues before the National Assembly.
04:06Of course, it will be for institutions, it will be for the French President to take the
04:12necessary steps, but it is Parliament, the National Assembly in its format.
04:19It will rule, it will decide in the end.
04:23This is what our institutions have made possible in a parliamentary democracy.
04:28We will have to carry this through.
04:34Parliamentary democracy means that, whenever possible, we must seek majorities to vote
04:41bills.
04:42There are many bills waiting to be voted on, and for many who were hoping for the bill
04:54on end-of-life to be voted, they wanted that to happen, and it will, and there will be
04:59tax reforms, and of course, there will be a new budget to be voted by the government.
05:05We know what we would like to have in the budget, wealth tax, taxes on capital gains,
05:15taxes on the profits of large corporations.
05:18That is what is expected of us, what is expected of the New People's Front.
05:25You know, of course, I have always been a socialist, throughout my life, the left found
05:32its new balance, and it is just as well, because we can only bring hope if it is united and
05:38balanced in its diversity, and we have achieved this.
05:45We are accountable to the public, and there are three words that come to mind, work for
05:50the French, we have no time to lose.
05:53We do not know how long Parliament will last, one, two years, until the next presidential
05:59election.
06:00So back in business, François Hollande, former French President.
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