Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on the political uncertainty following French snap election

The winners of France's snap election may be certain, but deep political divisions means what'll happen next isn't clear.

People are celebrating in the streets of France, after left-wing coalition - the New Popular Front - has fended off the far-right National Rally.

It's a surprise result, reversing the National Rally's lead in votes last week.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey explains the unprecedented final result.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
UK correspondent Gevin Gray joins us now Hikevin.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Good morning, Franz Usca.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Good to talk to you. I've just been talking about
how fascinating elections are around the world at the moment
and the French election in the weekend, but riots of
erupted in France have a night following the most well,
this shocking result.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, I mean it was pretty shocking because the far
right National Rally Party had done so well in the
first round, getting one in three of all the boats
that were cast, and has then seemingly come third place
in the second round. Why well, because there was a
loose coalition of centrist and left wing parties that basically
got together they don't seem to have any other raison

(00:42):
lectra other than blocking the National Rally Party, and succeeded
in doing exactly that. So candidates dropped out are from
the left and center parties in order just to have
one left and center party candidate taking on the National
Rally and try and coalesce to gather those supporters around them.
And they have succeeded in that, and that led to

(01:03):
some pretty violent riots and demonstrations across France last night
with left wing protesters taking to the pavements against the
expected right wing game, and then of course violence breaking
out again when the results came out. Protester's picture throwing
smoke flares into the streets, demonstrators in Paris setting bins

(01:23):
on fire and vehicles on fire, and also pictures on
social media showing the police rushing in towards the flames
with protesters throwing projectiles at them and it looks like
using tear gas at those demonstrators. And this was after
thirty thousand police officers had been on duty during that

(01:44):
second runoff vote on Sunday, and that was quite simply
because they really did fear some major, major unrest on
the streets. The question now for France is what next?
Because I've got this loose coalition in place, they didn't
have that many policies that they all seem to agree on.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
How long is it going to take?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Kevin Luck, Yeah, I think this could take a month's
actually to work its way through. And the bizarre thing
about this Francesca is that the president, Emmanuel Macaran, he
came into power trying to effectively get more centrist support
in France, to do away with the far left, to
do away with the far right, and actually the reverse

(02:26):
has happened because both those areas have gained support in
this particular election.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
The UK's first female Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has made a
promise to kickstart economic growth. She's going to make this
a national mission, yes, and.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
She's probably going to give I would think the most
important speech of her life coming up in the next
couple of hours, because she's going to be talking to
the businesses and leaders at the Treasury and she's got
to obviously have to set out Labor the new party
of government in the UK Labour's plan for the economy
because growth has been sluggish. It's not been good in

(03:03):
around the world, but it's been really sluggish in the UK,
so how best to get that moving. One of the
plans she's going to unveil, we believe, is compulsory house
building targets. This has always been a major thorn in
the side of leaders because we need so many houses
being built and of course nobody wants them being built
near them. Plus the fact where a small nation in area,

(03:25):
very densely populated and people are very protective of green
spaces that are left. So it's going to be interesting
which way she twists and turns to try and get
rid of this. But experts are saying this is going
to be no easy target because there are going to
be all sorts of objections put in her way, and
one can see this going legal as well.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
No, we're all dealing with the same same issues. Given
I see a major UK supermarket chain has script a
four day working week after staff complained that the system
leaft them feeling exhausted.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, the Labor Party, the new party's government here in
the US, tends to receive much of its backing from
the unions, and although Secure Starmer the leader, is really
you know, keeping them at arms distance, there are others
who are very very keen on seeing more of those
union ideas being brought in. Amongst them Britain's largest union, Unison,

(04:17):
wants a four day working week, so it really is
pushing this now. It says it's been found to work
around the world and therefore we should have it in
the UK. But one leading supermarket chain here called Asda,
has been trialing a four day week and looks like
it's going to scrap it. Why well, across twenty stores

(04:38):
they did a trial where staff worked forty four hours
over four days rather than five, but had to you know,
got the same pay. But those eleven hour shifts proved
physically demanding and let the staff worn out. And they're
saying that they don't want to work the four days,
they prefer to work the five. This, of course, is
being highlighted in the right wing here as another concern

(05:02):
for the incoming labor party. Things they might try and do.
But yeah, four day weeks being talked about a lot here,
but very few big companies have managed to implement it successfully.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Oh, thank you so much for the update, Gevin Grady.
Good to talk to you for more from Hither Duplessy
Allen Drive.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
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