Transcript of The Global Impact of France’s Lurch to the Far Right

There's a big NATO summit in Washington, DC, this week. I know these big gatherings happen all the time, but this one is extra notable. For one thing, the alliance is marking its 75th anniversary. As always, there's a lot of pressing issues. Russia's war in Ukraine, countering China's influence, et cetera. But the timing is really notable because of the domestic political situation playing out in some of these countries.

If you take a look at what Trump did in Ukraine, this guy told Trump, Do whatever you want and do whatever you want. That's exactly what Trump did to Putin, encourage him, Do whatever you want, and he went in.

After the CNN presidential debate, multiple foreign diplomats describe to CNN how hard President Biden's performance was to watch. Well, Biden is scheduled to give a solo news conference at the summit as he continues to resist growing calls for him to drop out of the race. Meanwhile, in Europe, a wave of populism and anti-immigrant sentiment fueled big wins by far-right parties in European Parliament elections last month. As we post this, voters are going back to the polls in France, and what happens there could reverberate well beyond Europe. My guest today is CNN senior producer Saskia Van Dorn, who's based in Paris. We're going to talk about the 28-year-old face of the far right and how he could soon become French President Emmanuel Macron's biggest headache. From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Reind. Saskia, voters are heading back to the polls this weekend in France. Can you remind us how we got here?

Yeah. Well, David, you have to cast your mind back to the European elections, which were a month ago, and that seems crazy, considering how much has happened since then. Welcome, everyone. Far-right parties are projected to win a record number of seats in the European Parliament after four days of voting wrapped up on Sunday. Basically, the far-right did really well in those EU parliamentary elections, particularly France. Protesters took to the streets in Paris, outraged at gains for right-wing parties in France.

French President Emmanuel Macron, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, dissolved Parliament and called Snap Elections after his party.

I think because of that, Macron said he had no choice but to call Snap Elections. That's what caught everyone by surprise, even his Prime Minister. Everyone was asking, why did he do it? I think you've got to remember that this is a man who, on the night he won the presidency in 2017, walked out to Ode to Joy, Europe's anthem. I think he felt he couldn't really ignore these results. He's such a staunch European. But everybody was shocked because of the timing of it. It seemed a bit mad to call the elections right before the Olympics, and it gave all the parties such little time to campaign. But I think that's what Macron was planning to use to his advantage.

So he basically saw these EU parliamentary election results where the far-right did really well. And he basically said, You guys don't really feel like that, do you?

Yeah, exactly. I think he thought that the French might vote differently in an election that implicates them directly. A political earthquake is happening in France. The far-right National Rally, formerly the National Front, is closer to power than ever before. But of course, that gamble did not pay off. And so, as you said, not only did he take a beating in the EU elections, but he then took a second beating in the first round last Sunday. The far-right came out on top, the left-wing alliance was second, and of course, Macron's party and its allies came in third.

He's going to have to rule.

He's a President for the next three years.

He's going to have to stay in office and have a Parliament that basically is of the opposite party.

What Macron has kept repeating, he's vowed that he's going to see out the remainder of his term, and that runs until 2027. But traditionally, the President offers the premiership to the party with the largest share of seats in the National Assembly. And so he now faces the prospect of having to appoint a Prime Minister from an opposition party because because his party did so badly in that first round. And so that's why this week we've seen so much political maneuvering, because an unprecedented number of candidates did go through to that second round from the three blocks that I've been talking about. So the National Rally, Far-Right, the Left-wing Alliance, and Macron's Camp. And so to try to avoid splitting the vote and in an effort to block the Far-Right from getting an absolute majority, which is 289 seats, hundreds of candidates from the Left Wing Alliance and Macron's Camp decided to drop out to try and dent the far rights chances of getting a majority. And it seems to have worked in terms of getting that majority further out of the far rights reach. But I guess the big question now is, what happens if the far right have a minority government?

There are lots of scenarios that we can look at. But I do think that's an important one to focus on because the National Rally leader, Jordian Bardela, who's only 28 years old, making me feel quite old. He said that- The same. He said that he would refuse to govern if he doesn't have a majority in Parliament because he says he wouldn't be able to enact the changes he desperately wants. But so in this scenario- So you could just see a bunch of grid block in parliament. Exactly. It could be total paralysis.

Well, so tell me about this National Rally Party. This is the Far-Right Party. Jordan Bardella, who you mentioned, is the young figurehead of this group. What should we know about them and why so many French voters seem to be willing to vote for them?

Yeah, well, it's national rally. It's really a mix of identity politics and I'd say populist economics. I mean, they want to reduce immigration. They want to end free medical assistance from documented people. They want to end the right French citizenship, and that's automatically given to those born to foreign parents on French soil. They've also talked about reducing tax on energy bills, but they have road back on Brexit, for example. They no longer want to take- Brexit?

Is that like Brexit?

Yes, it is. Exactly. They no longer want to take France out of the European Union. Now, they say they just want to do a lot of negotiating to be able to bring the sovereignty back to France, but that they have dropped that idea of Brexit. I think what What's important to know about the National Rally is, we touched upon him, is Jaden Badr is the new face of this party. This is a guy, he's big on TikTok, young people love him. He He used to be a bit of a gamer when he was younger, and he has virtually no experience. There's been a lot of talk about the relationship between Marine Le Pen and Jaden Badala. If he is elected, if he is Prime Minister, if he is appointed by Macron to be the next Prime Minister, what will that relationship look like between Marine Le Pen and Jaden Badala? Is she the one who's really calling the shots? We need to also, I think, speak about what Marine Le Pen has done in order to get to this point where this party has almost been normalized. She brought it into the mainstream. No mean feat for a woman who inherited the party from her father, the Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Rally or National Front, as it was known, with former French members of Hitler's SS.

She essentially committed patricide by turfing her father out, who was the leader of the party, to try and detoxify it. The key also for the National Rally, the Young, who voted massively in favor of a party that few in the past would have admitted voting for. In a way, she's already won because she will have done something historic. The far-right, if it's the biggest party in Parliament on Sunday, that will be the first time since World War II that this has happened. David, we interviewed Marine Le Pen last night. Christian Ammonpour interviewed her. One of the things that I noticed when we walked in was that there were crates of champagne everywhere.

They're getting ready for the celebration.

They're getting ready for the celebration. But what Le Pen had to say to Christian was also pretty interesting. She laid into France's National Treasure football, Kylian Mbappé, because Christian asked Marie Le Pen what she thought of Mbappé's I think that now, more than ever, we have to go out and vote.

There's an emergency. We can't let our country in the hands of these people. It's really urgent. I think that we've seen the results. It's catastrophic. We really hope that it will change and that everyone will mobilize to vote and to make the right choice.

And Le Pen answered that Mbappé doesn't represent the French people, that French people are sick of being given moral lectures, especially by millionaires, and that these people, such as Mbappé, are lucky that they are shielded from poverty. You've had other celebrities who have come out. Anette Nacamouha, a very popular singer here who has also urge the French to vote against the extremes.

It just shows how the stakes have been driven up because That's the equivalent of Taylor Swift or Beyoncé and LeBron James basically saying, Hey, Americans don't vote for Donald Trump and the Republicans no matter what. It's that star level.

It is that star level. People here are super interested in what Mbappé keeps saying because he didn't just speak once. He then was asked about it again, and he doubled down. Again, repeating that he did not want to represent a country that does not represent his values.

You mentioned that the far right did well across all of Europe in the EU parliamentary elections. Is this an anti-incumbency thing? Are people just tired of the status quo, or is there something deeper going on here across Europe that the world should be paying attention to?

Yeah, I think apart from the UK, which is the outlier here, a lot of Europe has swung to the far right I think mass migration has a big part to play. You've also got energy politics, but people want change. We've seen that with Germany's AFD Party. You've got Giorgia Maloney in Italy, and now, of course, the far right here. I think everybody has their eyes firmly on the US election because a Trump victory would only really embolden the populists across the EU to seek more power and an influence, really. The Ukrainians say that they've been managing to stabilize the front line in many areas.

However, there's one particular area in the Dunya Khrushchevsk region called Chasivyar, where the Russians have said that they have made some gains towards a very key town.

In her interview with Christian Amampur, Marine Le Pen also touched on Ukraine. She said that Jordan Barthola as Prime Minister, would prevent Ukraine from using French-supplied long-range weapons to strike inside Russia. And that is significant, especially because Macron has been so ambitious in what he wants to do in terms of ramping up that aid, especially militarily. He has said that he wanted to send troops there to train up the Ukrainian soldiers. And Le Pen also responded to that by saying, Well, if Macron wants to send troops and Barthela doesn't, then Jolanne Baradala as Prime Minister, would get the last word. So that, again, shows us the division, the problems we're going to have between who has the final say, what is constitutional? And these are all questions that analysts are pouring over as we speak. It's that uncharted territory that I was talking about, this leap into the unknown that I think would just be more of a headache next week.

Like we've seen so many times with this war in Ukraine, what goes on in these domestic Halls of Power really has a big impact on the battlefield weeks and months down the road. We'll see what happens. Saskia, thank you.

Thank you so much, David. Au revoir.

One Thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paulo Ortiz and me, David Reind. Our senior producer producer is Fez Jamil. Our supervising producer is Greg Peppers. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dizula is our technical director, and Steve Ligtai is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manisari, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Lanie Steinhart, Jamie Sandrace, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namarau. Special thanks to Caroline Patterson, Dan Wright, and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Wednesday with another episode. Remember, if you like the show, leave us a rating and a review wherever you be sure to hit the follow button so you get a new episode right away. I'll talk to you later.