00:00Our French politics editor, Marc Perelman, of course, watched it,
00:03and he's with me now to talk a little bit about what he saw.
00:07Marc, I watched a bit of it myself, and I have to say,
00:09it seemed quite combative, I would say, in places.
00:12What did you think?
00:13Yes, because it's a wide-open race, and so no one can tell you,
00:17including myself, who will be the next mayor of Paris,
00:20because the race that seemed to be clearly in favour of Emmanuel Bregoire,
00:25the socialist candidate after round one when he came first,
00:30with a 12-percentage-point advantage over Rashida Dati,
00:33who was culture minister until a few weeks ago.
00:36On the right, he seemed a clear favourite,
00:39but the far-right candidate withdrew from the race,
00:43and the other centre-right candidate accepted to merge his list with Rashida Dati.
00:48So she has no more enemies on her side,
00:51whereas Emmanuel Bregoire still has a problem.
00:53The far-left candidate, Sofia Chikirou,
00:56she wanted to merge with him, but he refused.
00:59And so this is why yesterday's debate was quite fiery.
01:04Emmanuel Bregoire sometimes was quite on the defensive,
01:09because he felt that he needed to stand his ground,
01:14not to antagonise the far-left candidate, Sofia Chikirou,
01:18who was rather offensive.
01:20And clearly, because she has nothing to lose,
01:22she knows she will not win the race,
01:26and she really tried to push her ideas.
01:28She was probably the best of the three.
01:31Rashida Dati now can win.
01:35She is someone who is very media-savvy.
01:39She has punchlines all the time.
01:41But yesterday, you could see that she was probably nervous,
01:44because she also needs to show that she is still a center-right or traditional-right candidate
01:52and is not trying to get the votes that went to the far-right
01:55and be accused of essentially making an alliance without saying so with the far-right.
02:02But honestly, there's not many people watch the debate,
02:08and I don't think it will make a big difference on Sunday.
02:11It's now a very, very tight race between Rashida Dati and Emmanuel Bregoire.
02:16All right.
02:17Well, we will see what happens in that particular vote.
02:20What other races, though, will you be keeping your eye on on Sunday?
02:24Well, clearly Marseille, also a very tight race.
02:27The outgoing socialist mayor, Benoît Payon, holds a very narrow lead
02:32over the national rally candidate, Franck Aliziot.
02:36It's also a three-way race.
02:39This time, the far-left candidate decided to withdraw from the race.
02:45However, the conservative candidate, Martine Vassal, who scored just 12 percent,
02:50decided to remain in the race.
02:52And that could be the game-changer,
02:54because this means that for the far-right candidate,
02:59the votes will not go for him but for Martine Vassal.
03:03So it would seem that in this race,
03:06the socialist mayor, Benoît Payon, has a better chance to remain.
03:11What will also be interesting is to see several towns
03:14where there have been alliances between the left and the far-left,
03:18despite many, many fights between their leaders recently
03:23over accusations that a far-left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon,
03:27made anti-Semitic remarks.
03:29They said, we don't want to have anything to do with each other.
03:32Well, in some towns, like Toulouse, for instance,
03:35they decided to ally themselves.
03:37They say, it's purely local.
03:39You just shouldn't see any national lessons,
03:42especially for next year's presidential election.
03:44But the fact is that they've made alliances.
03:47And if it works, it could become a template for next year.
03:52What's clear also is that the Macron camp is nowhere to be seen.
03:56They had very little local anchorage,
03:59and they will have very, very little anchorage,
04:01because clearly they're going to be the big losers tonight.
04:05Sorry, not tonight, Sunday night.
04:06All right, thank you very much.
04:08Mark Perelman, for us there, our French politics editor.
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