So we're speaking the day after the results of Sunday's first round of France's presidential

election and as widely expected, Emmanuel Macron will, as in 2017, face Marina Le Pen of the

national rally in the second round vote on April 24. When we last spoke, Eric Zamore was riding

high in the polls and seemed to threaten Le Pen's place in the second round by splitting the far-right

vote. Why do you think Le Pen in the end the second round by splitting the far-right vote.

Why do you think Le Pen, in the end, managed to actually increase her vote share on her first

round result in 2017, in spite of the new competition from Zemort?

I think Zemort was a kind of firework that went up in the sky and exploded and then fell down rapidly afterwards.

As you remember, he was up to 17, 18 percent in the polls when he announced his candidacy

and did his big rally and so on.

And at that point, it did indeed seem like the far-right vote would be splits 50-50 or even more.

In fact, what happened was that Zimur played the role of a lightning rod, if you like, or a cover for Manny Nupin and her party.

So because Zimor was so outrageous and aggressive and took such

radical, discursive positions, he made her seem like she was something of a moderate. So for example,

his, you know, they both were pro-Putin,

but, you know, Zemo had gone much further previously to this election, saying that he was,

you know, he dreamt of the French Putin, that, you know, Ukraine wasn't a real country. During

the election campaign, he initially said that France shouldn't accept Ukrainian refugees

and so on. So he was much more extreme in his pro-Putting positions than Marine Le Pen.

Although, you know, of course, organically speaking, Marine Le Pen is much more linked to the Russian regime

because her previous election campaign was financed by a Russian

bank and that was probably arranged by somebody within the Putin circle. And she has expressed

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