Gavin Grey: French, UK elections

The second round of voting has begun in the French election, just a week after the far right National Rally Party won a third of votes. 

Cabinet in the UK is meeting for the first time since Labour won the election. 

French cyclist Julien Bernard is being fined for kissing his wife during a Tour de France time trial. 

UK and Europe correspondent Gavin Grey discusses all of this with Ryan Bridge on Early Edition. 

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fourteen to six now and Gavin Grays with US Live
from the UK. The French election big turnout.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Indeed looks like it, Ryan, Yeah, So a very important
next to fifteen minutes when the polls will close, and
then we should get some sort of an exit poll
coming out shortly after that, and then of course we
will know what's going on in the hours after that.
This is a huge moment for France. The National Rally Party,

(00:28):
the far right party, got one in three of the
votes of the first round last week. But since then
the left wing and centrist parties have got together to
try and basically some of them stand down in order
to hope that their supporters will then support the other
left wing our centrist candidate to freeze out the far right.
The question is will it work. The tempers have been

(00:49):
frayed over the last week with dozens of reports of
verbal and physical assaults of both candidates and activists and
those putting up posters and so forth. So lots of
police as on the street, thirty thousand police deployed, five
thousand of them in Paris alone. Things very very tense there,
so obviously we'll need to keep up to date with
that here in the UK. We've just had our election,

(01:11):
of course, and already the new Prime Minister, Skirstana visiting
the four nations, so going currently up in Scotland, going
to Northern Ireland and to Wales as well, trying to
sort of, as it were, seal the deal and to
show the irrespective leaders of those different places that he
is looking for a conversation and support and cooperation very quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
What is wrong with a kiss? This French cyclist has
been fine?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Ah, yeah, what a good question. So this is referring
to the Tour de France. There was a time trial
when one of the riders, a French cyclist, was quite
cycling quite near his home and out pop supporters and
his wife and it was a time trial if it
just stopped briefly to kiss his wife. And he's been
fined two hundred Swiss francs roughly three hundred and eighty

(01:58):
New Zealand dollars for the privilege, saying that the sports
governing body said it was unseemly or inappropriate behavior during
the race and damage to the image of the sport.
Who'd have thought it ran It's a.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Lot of money. I hope it was a French Kiss.
Thanksgivin us from the UK. For more from News Talks,
it'd b listen live on air or online and keep
our shows with you wherever you go with our podcasts
on iHeartRadio.