00:00We're going to get more analysis now from French politics specialist Paul Smith from the University of Nottingham.
00:05Paul, thanks so much for coming on the show.
00:07Always great to get your point of view on all of these subjects.
00:11What are your thoughts as we're looking toward now the presidential election next year?
00:15These mayoral elections were really meant to be a bellwether for that vote.
00:19What do you take from all of this?
00:21Well, I would pick up, first of all, on what Clovis was saying there about the way that the alliance
00:27with La France Insoumise has actually acted as a kind of slowed down the Parti Socialiste.
00:33A lot of heart searching overnight and this morning within the Parti Socialiste about their future relationship with La France
00:40Insoumise.
00:41So that's one of the issues there.
00:43But also in terms of thinking ahead to the election next year, a lot of other individuals will take a
00:49great deal of comfort from this.
00:51So Bruno Retailleau, leader of Les RĂ©publicains, not actually a candidate, but he took.
00:57He was saying last night, you know, he kind of saw the results for the mainstream right as being really
01:03the moment for him to fully launch his plans, his project for next year.
01:08We saw Edouard Philippe do extremely well up in Le Havre as well, reelected quite comfortably.
01:16But it is going to be really the focus is going to be where the who the candidates can be,
01:22who can kind of clean up the right, bring together the right and centre or someone like Retailleau, who might
01:28tempt far right wing voters into a more mainstream right.
01:32And also the big victims last night were the ecology party and wondering where they stand on the left.
01:38So a lot of different things happened last night that will be poured over by the parties.
01:44Meanwhile, there's a lot of soul searching as well.
01:46I would imagine amongst the far right, the far it was hoping this would be a much more positive night
01:50for them.
01:51What went wrong there?
01:53Well, I think I mean, there were very surprising results.
01:56The the margin in Marseille was quite astonishing and it shows what happens when the the moderate right wing voters
02:03actually jumped to the socialist when they're not bound to La France insoumise.
02:10Toulon was the other one that was the big surprise.
02:13One or two others were not so surprising.
02:15But where they have a real problem, the Rassemblement National, the national rally is in France's big cities, not so
02:23much in its out in in the moderate sized cities, places like Orange, Carpentras and Castres, but also in rural
02:32France where they're really beginning to put down roots.
02:34Now, the big question is, can the the Rassemblement National candidate, if that's going to be Bardella, is he going
02:41to be able to bring on board enough support?
02:44So they're going to be thinking, too, about how they tackle, how they improve their performance in in urban France,
02:51because after all, that's where the big numbers live.
02:54Indeed. And there are a lot of relieved socialists this morning in the big cities, especially here in Paris, where
03:01the socialists have ruled for 25 years.
03:03They extended that rule again last night with Emmanuel Grégoire.
03:07As you were saying, Grégoire was one of those who chose not to align himself with the far left.
03:11Was that all that that it took for him to win or what else made him the winner last night?
03:18Well, I think, you know, when we come down to it, we've got to think about the candidate, the the
03:22opponent, Rashida Dati, who who ran a really very poor campaign.
03:27Let's be honest, if you if you add all the pieces together, she should have been closer, if not winning.
03:33And I think there's a lot of a lot of thinking needs to go on there amongst the Republicans about
03:39who they pick as their candidate or candidates.
03:42But certainly, I think that Dati was, you know, there was a lot of horse trading.
03:49There was a by-election last year, towards the end of last year, where the deal that was cut was
03:53that Barnier would stand, Michelle Barnier would stand as the candidate for that by-election.
03:58If she got a clear run at the the mayoral election and that's backfired very seriously.
04:05So she's a candidate who can do well at the local, local level, but losing losing power, rather not winning
04:12Paris, is a really big blow to the to the right and also to the the center right.
04:19But particularly to her as an individual candidate.
04:21And how much do you think it hurt her that she, up until just a few weeks ago, was the
04:25culture minister for current president Emmanuel Macron, who's also really gone down in the polls as well?
04:31Yes, I don't think that helped, but I think that there's an awful lot about personality when it comes to
04:36these when it comes to municipal elections, particularly in cities like Paris, Marseille and Lyon.
04:43And we've seen a case in Lyon as well of a personality who who didn't really campaign properly, Jean-Michel
04:49Olaz, and paid the price for that.
04:51And I think it's really to do with her personality.
04:54Yes, as culture minister, but above all, in the kind of the kind of campaign that she ran, which didn't
05:02really focus on the issues and basically said, let's not have six more years of the left.
05:07And people need more than that. But what's really interesting about Paris as well is if you add up the
05:12France insoumise list, nearly 60 percent of Parisians voted for the left.
05:16That's that's unprecedented. So Paris is kind of a almost like a left wing outrider.
05:23So maybe Dati was was on a hiding to nothing in any case.
05:28Certainly lots of very interesting results for us to to pick over in the next few days.
05:32Absolutely. Paul, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us on that.
05:36That's Paul Smith from the University of Nottingham. Thank you.
