France's far right makes big gains in snap election
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 June 2024
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
France's far right National Rally has made big gains in the first round of the parliamentary elections, exit polls suggest.
Celebrating her party's early success, Marine Le Pen says "democracy has spoken" as she declares President Emmanuel Macron's camp "practically wiped out". Meanwhile, Mr Macron is calling for a broad alliance against Ms Le Pen's party ahead of next week's second round. Also in the programme: The UN holds talks with members of the Afghan Taliban in Qatar: does bringing them to the table imply recognition of their government? And the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines on preparations for Hurricane Beryl.
(Photo shows Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally party, speaking to journalists after partial results in the first round of the early French parliamentary elections in Henin-Beaumont, France on 30 June 2024. Credit: Yves Herman/Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service coming live from |
| 0:07.0 | London this is Owen Bennett Jones now there is general agreement in France that |
| 0:11.0 | President Macron took a huge gamble that was unlikely to pay off when he called a snap parliamentary election. |
| 0:19.0 | We now have some exit polls to help us see if it indeed went wrong for him. |
| 0:24.1 | And so far, Marine Le Penh National Rally on the right, 34%, |
| 0:29.1 | the Left Wing Coalition, 28%, and Macron's Ensembler Centrist Block 2021% which led Maureen Le Pen to announce |
| 0:38.9 | her party's victory and a defeat for President Macron. |
| 0:42.4 | The Democracy apparently. and a defeat for President Macron. |
| 0:43.0 | Democracy has spoken and the voters have placed the national rally and its allies and the lead |
| 0:51.0 | and virtually erased the presidential block. |
| 0:54.2 | The French people have therefore clearly expressed their wish to start afresh after seven years |
| 0:58.8 | of contemptuous and corrosive power. |
| 1:01.4 | And looking ahead to the next round of voting in a week she made it clear |
| 1:05.1 | she wants her party's candidate Jordan Bardella to be in a position to lead the next |
| 1:10.2 | French government. In a democracy, nothing is more normal or healthier than political change. |
| 1:17.2 | To bring about this political change and start the reforms which this country needs, we need |
| 1:21.8 | an absolute majority so that in eight days Jordan Bardella |
| 1:25.5 | can be appointed Prime Minister by President McPhee. |
| 1:28.4 | Well there we are, let's speak to the people see Sue Schofield in Paris first of all because we've just heard |
| 1:33.8 | from marine le Penh there and I guess the next question is what did Macron say his |
| 1:38.0 | prime minister has just been speaking as well I see on the TV monitors just |
| 1:41.7 | three or four minutes ago. |
... |
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