Catherine Field: French election updates

The left have tactically held out the National Rally and they are projected to finish a distant third to new popular front and Macron's centrist coalition. 

The first exit polls are out, and the second round of voting has begun. France Correspondent Catherine Field joins Andrew Dickens for more. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the France election rumbles on. Not so good a
second round for the right. In these elections, the left
have tactically held them out. At the National Rally, the
former Front Nacinale projected to finish a distant third to
new Popular Front. They're very left and Macron's centrist coalition.
So here is Jean Lucamillichamp and he said he's ready

(00:20):
to be part of a new coalition the president.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
How the President has got the responsibility to call the
new ask for the new Popular Front to double and
we are ready to do so.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Okay, sow did that change anything? The first exit polls
are out and France correspondent Catherine Field has joined to
be now Hello Catherine, Hi, Good morning Andrew. What do
you make of it?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Well, it's a political earthquake for France. Everyone had been
believing the polls that Mahine La Penn and her National
Rally were going to be the largest block in parliament
after tonight, and it now seems that the country really
did stand up and decided that it didn't want to
be governed by the far right. It didn't give them

(01:14):
the big mandate which they were hoping for, but it's
put the whole parliamentary system into a bit of a question,
mark Andrew, Because we now have a parliament that's dominated
by three blocks, each of the blocks well short of
an absolute majority for getting any sort of legislation.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Through Macronz there for another three years. What are they
going to do about the prime minister?

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Good question, and it really does depend who you ask
at the moment. I certainly the Left Alliance which has
got the largest share of the votes and the largest
number of seats that does they are saying, you've got
to come to us and ask for us to provide
a prime minister. Well, you know that alliance has got
four and a bit parties. Two of them are the

(02:00):
far left and two of them are more in the
sort of center left, the Socialists and the Greens. So
they're going to have to decide among them who is
going to go forward as the prime minister. And in
that we're really going to start seeing a lot of
hor Australian Andrew. That's where we're really going to see
if the Socialists, who used to be such a big
force in French politics for almost a century, whether they

(02:22):
are going to desert that alliance which got them seventy
seats in Parliament and go running to President Manuel Macron
because they think maybe they'll get to be Prime minister,
maybe they'll have the power back that they saw whittle
away from their grasp over the last couple of decades.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
There was a lot of tension in this election. There
was a lot of security forces on the street, there
was a lot of threat of violence. And now we've
got a situation where everyone's a little bit hung and
we're not sure what's happening next. So what effect will
this have going forward? Particularly are the mood around the Olympics.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Well, I think if it was just for the time being,
to be honest with you, Andrews breathing a sigh of relief,
because all of the policies that Marine La Penna and
the National Rally came up with were all ones that
were absolutely aimed at dividing the country. There's two tiers
of citizenship, Bob really putting more police on it. It
was really a tone that people were worried about that

(03:17):
was going to change. So what's going to happen is
I think we're going to see a little bit of
a horse trading going on. So happened, but we're not
going to see that huge shift that people feared if
the national rally came to power for the Olympics. Well,
it's all sort of in the bag. Whose Prime minister
doesn't really matter that much because that's going to be

(03:38):
the president's show. He will be there as well the
Mayor of Paris, and of course her job wasn't up
for grabs in these elections, so she'll be doing what
she can to steal the limelight there, as will President Emmanuel.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Macrawl kas Field. I thank you for your term seven
twenty one. Meanwhile, what does the current Prime minister think.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
The political position that I represented in this In this campaign,
though we had three times better results than had been envisaged,
doesn't mean that it's a majority. So faithful to the
Republican tradition. I will actually Withsdore tomorrow morning.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Good stuff and I thank you for more from the
Mic Asking Breakfast.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
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