All right, Alexander, let's talk about some election developments in Europe. We had elections

in France. We had an election in Germany. And we also had this judicial referendum that took place

in Italy, for which Maloney lost. Which election do you want to start out with?

Well, I think we should start with the local elections in France,

regional elections in France.

Now, I mean, I used to know France very well,

and I used to know about the politics in France.

And there has always been in France a significant division between the way politics are conducted

at the national level and way politics is conducted at the regional level.

So if you're talking about what happens in the regions, the departments, as they're called

in France, and is the cities.

Incumbency in France is a very, very powerful factor. So if you have a town where you have

a socialist mayor, more likely than not, in any regional election, unless there is an absolute

overwhelming tidal wave, that mayor is going to be re-elected. And politicians at regional levels also tend to be very distinct, despite whatever label they carry,

from elections at the center, at the national level.

So I think this is what people need to be aware of, because there's been a fair amount of talk about

how the socialists held on in some places like Marseille, for example, which by the way,

historically, once upon a time, was a rock-solid left-wing city. It hasn't been that for a fair

amount of time now. But anyway, the Socialists held on in Marseille and Edouad Philippe of the Republicans

held on in Le Avre.

Well, as I say, incumbency works very much to the advantage of whoever standing there, as it did in Paris, where the socialist

was also re-elected. If you look below the surface, what you see is the continued collapse

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