 Good afternoon everybody. My name is Barry Colfer and I'm the director of search here at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin. I'm pleased to welcome you to this webinar on the future of France, the 2022 French presidential election. We're really delighted to be joined by two leading experts in this topic and friends of the Institute, Lara Marlowe, Paris correspondent at the Irish Times, and Emmanuel Sean Quinlivan, lecturer in European politics at UCC. We've both been generous enough to take time out of their schedules to discuss the important forthcoming French presidential elections. Momentarily Lara and Emmanuel will speak for approximately 10 minutes each, and then we will go to questions and answers with you the audience. You'll be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom, as usual, which you should see on your screen. Please feel free to send any questions in throughout the session as they occur to you and we'll get through as many of them as possible once our speakers have concluded their opening remarks. A reminder that today's presentation and Q&A are both on the record. Please also feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IEA. I'll now formally introduce our speakers and we'll then hand the floor over first to Lara and then to Emmanuel before the Q&A. Lara Marlowe is a Paris-based foreign correspondent for the Irish Times. As a journalist for more than three decades working for Time Magazine and the Irish Times, Lara has lived in Paris, the Middle East and Washington DC. She's a recipient of the Lesion Donneur and has written three books, including her most recent Love in a Time of War with Apollo Press. Many of you, of course, will also have been following Lara's incredible coverage of the atrocious conflicts in Ukraine over recent weeks. Dr. Manuel Jean-Claude Levin is a lecturer in European politics at the Department of Government at UCC, University College Cork, where she teaches French politics, comparative politics and European policymaking. Dr. Jean-Claude Levin also holds a chair in active European citizenship and is the director of UCC's hub in active European engagement. I'm a PhD from UCD. I'm at my alma mater. And between 2017 and 2019, she led a Jean Monnet project entitled My Big Friendly Guide to the European Union, co-funded by the European Commission, communicating Europe initiative with DFA and Cork City Council. Thank you both very much for being with us. I'm looking forward to the discussion and Lara, the floor is yours. Thank you, Barry. Hello, everybody. I'm still, despite the whole pandemic, I'm still not used to just seeing myself on the screen and talking to a computer, but it does enable us to do this today. This election has been really an election foretold for ages, for months, maybe for a year. We are expecting a repeat of more or less what happened in 2017, which was Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen being the two finalists qualifying next Sunday night for the runoff. And then everyone, most people expect Macron to defeat Le Pen again, albeit by a much narrower margin this time. She's actually progressed a great deal in her process of de-diabolization or undiminishing herself, I suppose we would say. She has a lot of people even question whether or not she's really right-wing now, which is quite shocking in a lot of ways. It has been a hard five years for Emmanuel Macron. He had three huge crises, the Gilles Lejeune revolt in 2018 and 2019, the pandemic for the last two years, and now the war in Ukraine. In fact, one of his advantages in the election is that he is seen by 64%, according to a call of French people, to be capable of handling a grave crisis. And he's seen as having let go of the stuff, the making of a president, whereas Marine Le Pen scores only 39% on that same criterion. Marine Le Pen's greatest challenge and perhaps more recently her greatest blessing has come from Eric Zemur, who emerged suddenly at the end of last summer as a challenger to her. And they were equal in the polls. I think they were both at 15-16% for a while. He was plummeted in the last, since the war started in Ukraine, because he said that Putin was justified in doing what he did. He said that Ukraine had always been part of Russia. They spoke the same language until the 13th century. He didn't explain about the last eight centuries, what that meant. He said that Ukrainian refugees were migrants like anybody else. And so he's, he's, he has now fallen to 9% in the poll published yesterday and he would remember he was up at sort of 16%. But he still is a reserve of votes for Marine Le Pen. He gets the 22% predicted, plus, you know, Zemur is 9%, that puts her already over a third of the vote without counting all the people from les républicains, from the mainstream conservative party who might vote for her over Macron. So the other, the other surprises, I mean, there, there is a surprise in the last week, actually over the last three weeks, Le Pen has narrowed the gap between her and Macron quite dramatically. And she was at, I think it was 17, let's see, she, well, there was a 13 point percentage points difference between them in mid-March. Macron was at 30% and she was at 17%. And now that that point difference is only six instead of 13. So she definitely has momentum. That's worrying a lot of people. Although the, the main poll published by Les Ecoles yesterday predicts that Macron would win 53% of the vote and 47% for Le Pen. So a few polls that actually show Le Pen winning. So I don't need to tell you that would be an absolute seismic huge event for France for Europe, it would be, it would be pretty dramatic if that happened. The other thing that happened, a smaller surprise, which seems to possibly be receiving is that Jean-Luc Mélenchon from the far left, La France Insoumise, France Unbowed is now firmly in third place. So he's moved way up in the polls. And although he fell one percentage point, strangely enough, a certain number of his voters would probably go to Le Pen on the far right. So he's another reserve for her. Another, I remember Patty Smith who may be listening to us today who was my foreign editor at the Irish Times used to quote some British Prime Minister saying events, dear boy events and certainly we've had surprises in past campaigns. You remember the scandal that did for Francois Fillon, five years ago. There have been a couple of things that have come up, news events, not on that scale, but they, they could both hurt Macron. What is the McKinsey scandal, the McKinsey consulting group, big American firm, which you remember the governor of the European Central Bank worked for in Chicago. And McKinsey turns out Macron's government has commissioned a billion euros worth of studies from McKinsey consultants. And this is very unpopular France as you know has a huge civil service and people say well they should have been using civil servants. And people point out that this is far less than the consultants reports commissioned in Germany, and they say it was high, most of it, three quarters of it was high tech stuff like the tooth anti COVID app on the telephones and so on. But that's that's one a lot of people are very angry about that I'm personally not thrilled to have my tax euros going to pay McKinsey consultants. But anyway that that's been a big scandal and the opposition is trying to make a big deal of it. More recently, a disabled Jewish boy called Jeremy Cohen was pursued by some, I believe Arab youths in somewhere near Paris and he was run over by a tram and died. And the police initially said it was an accident people are screaming this is a cover up that it was called an accident. And it brings to mind at Eric Zemmour's big rally at the Place du Trocadero. There were people chanting Macron assassin Macron murderer, and they were alluding to accusations made by the more who held Macron responsible for the murder of two old Jewish women in eastern Paris by Arab neighbors. So it's very ugly and obviously it's not Macron's fault and he did not kill these people. But that's that's part of the, the ambiance of this election is that the far right is accusing Macron of not having been tough enough on security and immigrants and Arabs and Islam. Very quickly, if, if, what is the difference, you know between Macron, Le Pen, Macron, again is portraying the difference as a battle between progressives on his side and nationalist populist on Marine Le Pen side. Macron actually got two things quite wrong in foreign policy, although that's his probably his strongest suit. One is he thought that one could deal with Vladimir Putin that one could be frantic and one should have dialogue with with Putin. He's still talking to Putin on the phone or on by video link very often. And he also was very gung-ho very keen on promoting European defense as something independent from NATO, and the war in Ukraine has shown that to have been kind of misguided as well because the video comes out of it very, very much reinforced. But nobody I haven't heard anyone in France reproaching him for those things. He, I think he's done, he's dealt with the economy quite well. One, another one of his boasts is that unemployment is only 7.4% he says it's the lowest it's been in 15 years that's disputed by his opponents, but it certainly is much better than it was. I wonder though he's telling the French they will have to work longer and harder, which is never a terribly popular proposition and he wants to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65. I fear that may lose him a few votes as well. But he also, the part of Macron's problem is he's all the time he always, you know, on the one hand on the other hand at the same time. It's very hard to read a kind of vision or continuity and what he's saying. And I'll give you one example of that. He's saying that people who get the RSA, the revenue to solidarity. What is it? So anyway, it's the basic welfare payment, but they will have to do 15 or 20 hours a week of training or activity. And at the same time, he's offering a pre Macron bonus to workers of up to 6000 euro a year. It's the employers have to pay it but it's free of tax and free of social charges. I would say his other shortcoming is he's just terribly long winded he took four hours to present his program. And his his rally his one big rally his speech was two hours and 10 minutes and I think he just loses people's attention. Vladimir Putin actually said probably the only funny remark he ever said was that Macron had tortured him with his verbosity. And I think I'm running over time so I'll try to speed up a little bit here. Has done a very good campaign by just about everyone's evaluation she has managed to portray herself as very close to the people. And the fact that virtually everyone in France refers to her simply as Marine. And they don't refer to Macron as a manual shows that she does have she does seem to have the common touch. She's made a she's talked a lot about purchasing power, which polls show is the number one concern of the French and her way of dealing with that is to reduce VAT on energy from 20% to 5.5%. She's also some people who question whether she's far right. Well, she she supports, she supported same sex marriage. She supports the welfare state, and she wants retirement at age 60, rather than 65, which you know it's it's like Christmas for everybody. But her to I think she still can be qualified as extreme right because her, the two pillars of her campaign are anti immigration and anti Islam. For example, she wants to ban the wearing of the Islamic headscarf everywhere, everywhere in public in France, which is, which is pretty severe measure. She wants to block welfare payments for the parents of delinquent minors. She wants to actually change the French Constitution to establish what she calls the national priority. She wants jobs, public housing, hospital beds, every benefit will go first to French people and all after all the French people have been served then we'll see about the foreigners, and she also wants to renegotiate European text and treaties. I would say that her election, even though she no longer says she wants to leave the EU, it would, in effect, be a frexit. It would, it would mean France virtually leaving the EU. So I'll hand it over to Emmanuel now. And indeed I was really curious there about the notion of frexit and I hope Manuel may comment on that. But just before Manuel if I might just intrude for a moment because so much of what Lara said there is of enormous interest and we'll get on to it in the questions and answers. I'm just really curious that one thing, Lara, was that you said from Les Echos, a recent poll was 47% of people are indicating support for Marine Le Pen. No, this is what they do. I mean France has this crazy system of two or two round presidential election, I believe that the only people in the world who do it this way. So it's what they call the Roppel des Voids. Who will you vote? Well actually in Ireland there's a, there's something kind of similar where your vote, I've never understood it. I'll go into the Irish system. But the pollsters, what they do is, okay for the first round we know the panoply the range. The second round because we're not certain it will be Macron Le Pen. The pollsters asked people if it's Macron Le Pen in the second run in the runoff. Who would you vote for in the runoff. And the result of this poll, which was done by opinion way KL partners for Les Echos was that Macron would get 53% and Le Pen would get 47%. A simple question that would I'm sure draw a complicated answer but if you have anything simple to say on the composition of that group Lara, compared to five years ago because so much has changed since the last president and five years ago Macron won 66% of the vote in the runoff and the pen got but 40, no 34. Yes, 34%. So it was 34, 66. So this shows you how dramatically the gap has narrowed. And is there any sense of what the composition of that has been like who what sort of socially you mean socially in terms of identity profile of any kind what sort of people are being more drawn to to Marine Le Pen now than five years ago, if you can comment. Well, I mean, over city dwellers vote for Macron, the more educated you are the richer you are the more likely you are to vote for Macron. The poor you are the more rural, you are the more likely you are to vote for Le Pen, but she is in the younger people prefer Le Pen as well older people prefer Macron. And I think it would just be a strengthening of those trends or tendencies is my my feeling for it. I think Le Pen has probably gained a lot from the mainstream right. There's certain kind of. Well, actually it was a more was was getting people like COT, who's a deputy from the Republican had actually said he would rather vote for the more than for for Macron. And certainly there will be people on the right, who would he would vote for for Le Pen. The opposition or saying, don't vote for Pecret, Valerie Pecret, who's the official candidate of the Republican is tied with the more now at 9%. And people are saying, don't vote for Pecret, a vote for Pecret is a vote for Macron, she Macras, Macras, Pecret and Macron are the same thing. At one point Pecret accused Macron of having stolen from her her program, but now he's kind of he's kind of veering right, I'm sorry he's veering left at the last few days of the campaign and his big rally he said he channeled Francois Mitterrand we talked about and he's talking now about a lot of social measures and education and childhood and gender parity and these sorts of things. Thank you so much, I'm manual thank you for indulging me that is with with that question. And over to you manual you you've 10 minutes. Thank you very much for inviting me first of all. And yes, just to follow from what Laura said I'd like to have a look at Europe as a structuring theme of the 2022 campaign. So unlike in 2017 when actually Europe was was really present in everybody's program and everybody's in the festival. It's not really there in 2022. And you, Laura alluded to it, but several candidates have actually changed their position on the European Union. So you had Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who had a plan A and a plan and a plan B regarding leaving the European Union in 2022. He's not on this line he's changed. And he's talking about disobedience. Lara mentioned my in Le Pen's position, who was advocating because she was advised by Philip or leaving the Eurozone that actually scared a lot of her voters. So she rode back on this. And as Lara mentioned, and it's interesting that Lara thinks it's a frenzied. She's obviously not presenting it like this because she doesn't want to scare away voters. So if there's anything about Europe that candidates have probably learned is that they shouldn't indicate any type of Brexit or any type of leaving the European Union or the Eurozone. But what Le Pen puts in her manifesto is staying in the European Union without following the rules. And she clearly states it we will not follow the EU rules. So that's that's quite interesting. Even when you look at Emmanuel Macron, who in his 2017 manifesto had 43 mentions of Europe or European. When you look at the 2022 manifesto there are only 18 mentions of the same Europe or European. Macron's candidacy was official candidacy was delayed. So there were lots of rumors on the structuring of his manifesto. And there were rumors that you'd have four packs, a generational pact, a production pact, a Republican pact, and that the fourth one would be European pact. But actually it came out with only three packs. So Europe is weaved into the program. Certainly Macron hasn't lost his European credentials. But when you look at his manifesto it's all about a very protecting France and it's much more about France at the forefront than actually Europe. So, so that's quite interesting. Looking at, you know, if you have to color code the 12 different candidates, there are only really three that are pro European, you know, that are openly supporting the European Union as it is or towards further integration and that's Yannick Jadot is the only one who has several pages on Europe about European environmental treaty, and he specifically mentions a federal Europe. And he's the only candidate to do this. And obviously Emmanuel Macron, I would categorize as pro European, obviously. Interestingly, Europe burst onto the campaign scene because France took the presidency of the Council of the European Union. And first of January, the government across France decided to hang the European flag in different kind of key landmarks. And one of them was under the Act de Triomphe where the soldin connu lies and that created a huge controversy. Le Pen in particular went all the way to Le Conseil d'État, our highest administrative court to ask for the flag to come down, that it was a disgrace that the French flag had been displaced when actually the French flag doesn't fly permanently under the Act de Triomphe. So that was the first kind of obviously controversy and mention of Europe in the campaign. Interestingly, the flag was taken down two days later simply because, you know, that was the timing of it. It was just a signal that France was taking the presidency of the Council. And then it was put up again on the 10th of March when there was this Council meeting in Versailles and actually it didn't trigger any comment then. So that's how Europe was put into the campaign. Obviously, you know, the Macron's candidacy was delayed and Lara mentioned that the war in Ukraine played a huge part. You had several candidates and consultants or advisors who argued that the war in Ukraine has robbed the presidential campaign, the outgoing president, so Macron postponed until the 3rd of March to declare that he was a candidate. And it has left the existing candidates in this kind of ambiguous situation where they feel they need to show national and European unity, but at the same time the French presidential campaign is one of our most political and politicized moment of our republic. So, necessarily, they have felt kind of in between two repulsed and found this campaign really uneasy. Certainly, the candidates that have experienced have also been the most favored by the electorate. So we have Macron, Le Pen and Mélenchon, who have the experience of campaigning, who have kind of the stature and it's no surprise that they're the top three in the polls. And the other aspect that I'd like to mention is that France has a large proportion of pro-Putin or anti-nato politicians compared with the rest of Europe. So the war in Ukraine, the relations with Russia, the relations with Putin, two different things have been really at the centre of the campaign. I just want to maybe mention a couple of things still. So in my mind, the European Union has been omnipresent due to the COVID crisis and the war in Ukraine. We had obviously the vaccines. We had the next generation EU programme that was, you know, discussed. We had the green transition through the European Green Deal and just very recently the bulk gas purchases as well. So putting really the European Union at the heart of our daily lives. At the same time, it will be interesting to see how the election actually goes, because we have just had Orban being re-elected and creating a lot of hesitancy or trouble within the European partners. Obviously Lupin was one of the first ones to congratulate Orban. Orban straight away criticising Zelensky and showing his support towards Putin. So here this European unity will be in trouble pretty quickly. And Macron is putting on the agenda, the auditioning of Hungary regarding Article 7 potential sanctions. So this is something that the French presidency is going to try and push. At the same time, the rule of law issues will be quite at the heart of the campaign but also what's coming after. And regarding what it means for Ireland, this particular election, I think if it is Macron who wins, it will be more of the same. He's still pushing for the minimum corporate tax, which has been put on hold just there by a vote of several countries, Poland, Sweden, Estonia and Malta. But certainly Le Maire wants to put it back on the agenda in April and there will be a constant push. This has been an agenda for a long time. It has the momentum and it's certainly going to happen, but Macron will push for further reforms of the Economic Monetary Union and a push on European defence. And what Lara mentioned is very interesting because France has always had this idea that there would be a European defence independent of NATO. And I think Gérard Avot, who's a former French ambassador to the US, has always said, we have to be pragmatic. Like we have to build a European defence pillar within NATO and I think the war in Ukraine has again highlighted to France that the partners will not build. If there is a push for European defence by them, it will be within NATO. And I think France is coming down to this compromise slowly, but surely, but it will be nonetheless a push on European defence. What I want to finish on is the fact that whether it's Macron or whether it's Le Pen, in my opinion, the main election isn't this one. The main election is the legislative election because for either of them, it's going to be difficult to have a majority in the National Assembly. Macron has got very, well, En Marche or L'Arène has got very shallow roots across France, but Le Front National, just the same, we've seen it in regional elections. They didn't manage to get a region and I can't see Marine Le Pen getting an overall majority. So it's either coalition government, which is always problematic, or it is a cohabitation and I wouldn't rule out a cohabitation. Which means that in case of a cohabitation, neither Macron nor Le Pen will actually be the real deciders at European level. Like it's the Prime Minister for a lot of the decisions that will represent France in councils and etc. So I would say it's, of course it would be, as Lara mentioned, a seismic change and a seismic vote if Marine Le Pen was president. And it would signal issues regarding European values and etc. But let's keep in mind the next election, which works in tandem with the presidential election and will have an impact on Europe and as well for Ireland then. Thank you so much Manuel. I'll turn to Lara in a moment, Lara, if you have any immediate comments before going to the questions and answers. But Manuel, just something you were saying there. Am I right to say there is one of the biggest gaps between the presidential, the second round, the presidential and the legislative. Specifically on that, are there any specific implications about the length of time you could comment on? And also, I don't know the extent to which there's truth in this, but I had read possibility of Mr Sarkozy re-emerging as a player in advance of the legislative. Is there any truth in that or is that just parlor talk? Okay, that's several points. So yes, it is the biggest gap ever in time between the two elections. Since we moved to the taekwondo. And there are certainly, there were rumors that Macron was even thinking about dissolving the National Assembly to bring those elections earlier. Now, this is usually seen as a gimmick by the electorate. So it can backfire quite badly. And, you know, Jacques Chirac could tell a lot to Emmanuel Macron about using the dissolution for your own purposes. So that's something that has disappeared. So I think Emmanuel Macron has probably pushed it back. Yes, there will be, you know, Zemmour, for example, is preparing for the legislative elections. He's now, I mean, he knows he won't be in the second round. What he's looking at is the reconfiguration of the right here and stealing as many Leret-Publican voters as possible and quite trying to reconfigure then a right that is much more conservative and is eating up Marien Le Pen's electorate because there's a real question mark whether Marien Le Pen will go for a fourth if she's not elected this time, a fourth candidacy. So these two months will be quite crucial, yeah, in terms of deciding what's going to happen next. It's extremely interesting both of you. It's such a pleasure to hear your reflections and we have a huge amount of questions and obviously, but I did say Lara just in case, is there anything that you'd like to respond to what Emmanuel said or should I carry on with the questions. The only thing I would comment on, I mean, I agreed with 99% of what Emmanuel said, I'm not sure that the legislative elections are that important for the simple reason that the French president is virtually a monarch. He does what he wants to and we've seen it under Macron's rule, his own majority which I think is made no longer be a majority because some people left it, it was pretty borderline anyway. They were constantly complaining the president doesn't pay any attention to us, he never invites us to the 80s, he doesn't talk to us. He pretty much ignored his own majority. And okay they need the legislature to pass laws but the president can actually govern more or less by decree, if he wants to, Macron has done a certain amount by decree. And I think that, regardless of the results, les républicains will be a sort of reservoir for either Macron or Le Pen. I was at a think tank conference the other day here in Paris and the Dominique Rainier who's an expert on the French right was saying that he expects if Le Pen does is in the run off a certain number of the far, the further right. Les républicains, people like Cioti, Vauquiez may come out and actually support Le Pen and say well you know it's the best thing for the country or if she wins anyway they will. And I could very well imagine her having a prime minister from les républicains and remember Macron has had two prime ministers from les républicains, both of his prime ministers. So I think, yes, it might be a form of cohabitation and if so, in either case it would be with les républicains. But Emmanuel is right that the extreme right always does poorly in legislative elections. The system is rigged that way. In fact Macron promised on Saturday he would look at that so that representation was more fair that he would reform that system. But Mitterrand had changed it to favor the foreign national in the old days and then it was changed back. But the extreme right, the extremes do very poorly and les républicains it's kind of ironic. Valerie Peckress will probably not do very well, but I would expect them to do much better in the legislative elections because they're very rooted in the territory on the ground, out in the provinces, whatever they basically own the Senate. And they usually do quite well in the National Assembly as well. Everyone loves the French election. It's so exciting. There is a huge amount of questions. So I'm going to try and get into as many of them as possible. The first one I'm going to put first of all to Lara and then Manuel. It comes from your colleague Patrick Smith, Foreign Policy Editor at the Irish Times. Patrick asks, are voters concerned by Le Pen dissembling over support for Putin? Lara then Manuel. They should be, but they don't seem to be. She, as you know, she got a loan from Putin, well from a Russian bank close to the Kremlin. In the last election she owes them, I think 9.4 million euro. She went and made a speech in the Duma. She's very chummy with the speaker of the Russian, you know, Duma. No, I haven't heard anybody question this and I think it goes back to the old goalist thing of French independence and, you know, the goal used to talk about super power condominium and they saw the Soviet Union and the US as almost equal in a way and that mentality is sort of rooted in France and I think especially the far right would be very distrustful of the US and of NATO and less suspicious of Russia astonishingly even after the invasion of Ukraine and Le Pen has quite successfully played down her past support for Russia and Putin. She did create a little bit of a scandal by saying that she could envisage being allies with Putin again after the war. And this was brought up on on France on tear radio this morning and she said, Oh, what I meant was we could be in the future allies with Russia again. But she is which I haven't heard her say a word against Putin, but it doesn't seem to be denting her support. You see, what the difference was the more was he really he really came out strongly in support of Putin and the war and against the refugees and Le Pen has just been very tiptoed around the whole issue. Manuel, I invite everyone to both you to answer each question if you have something to say on this one. I mean, really, Lara has covered all the bases there. Indeed, Zemur suffered and took the hit for all the pro-Putin anti-NATO candidates. You know, it didn't dent anything from Melanchon. He's like he's got huge momentum at the moment, like plus 4.5 points, I think in the last month. And same, same with Le Pen. Le Pen has been very cagey, careful, as Lara said, tiptoeing and being being, yeah, a little bit shifty, but it worked for her. So, so yeah, it's her electorate will keep support and ultimately her electorate, you know, is, and that is the difference with Zemur as well. Her electorate is very working class as well. All they want is cost of living purchasing power, etc. Whether she supports Putin, how is she funded, they don't really care. I'll move on to to a question that looking across Europe, we can see the kind of the recovery of the of the center left and a lot of places, obviously in Iberia, Germany and the Nordics. And we've a question in, I'll put it to Emmanuel first. In fact, I'll group two questions together. The first of which is from Dr. Clare Lodee at Trinity College. The question is, how do you explain the collapse of the traditional left and right wing parties since 2017? Is there anything new since five years ago that either of you can shed light on regarding the, not just the collapse, but for me what's curious is the failure, failure of the recovery on the center left especially. And then a second question I'll group together. The recovery of Brahanek former Labour TD and former Education Minister. Good to have you with us, Neil. Neil asks to both speakers. Any comment on the socialist failure to impact on this election related but separate. I'll give you the chance to answer first Emmanuel. What I can think of certainly this collapse on the left started in 2017 they haven't recovered one bit. We might actually one of the other big surprises that might happen this Sunday is the communists potentially scoring slightly more than the socialists, which would be unheard of in the Fifth Republic. So lack of unity on the left, it's so splintered. I mean the number of different parties on the left is just astounding and they cannot agree. And they have been attempts but they cannot agree on, you know, a common manifesto etc. Which ultimately, if we go back that's what Mitterrand did right with the program command that they don't have that and which leads to a battle of egos, which is quite astounding. At the same time, just specifically on Anne Hidalgo, she was poorly selected in the process. I mean, you know she seemed to have been selected by the party and then they went all will do a primary to endorse it which which was really like putting things back to front and obviously not being very democratic. But ultimately I mean it comes back to the lack of ideas. What have they brought to the debate that is really novel. How have they regenerated or modernized their ideas, how the party is working as well is particularly questioning and that I think on the left is one of the, or a few of the biggest issues. On the right. Yes, I'm more surprised, nearly on the right to see the public are struggling so much. And you had sorry I never mentioned I never answered your past question about Sarkozy. Sarkozy didn't endorse the press, and this has been a slow poison for her campaign, I think. You know, she was hoping to get the endorsement, and it didn't come and I think his advisors or his friends kept putting out all the nasty things he was saying in private about her, and kind of highlighting how he thought Sarkozy was absolutely amazing, even better than he was, you know. So, Sarkozy built the Republican to his image, and managed to hold it together. This party doesn't, doesn't work anymore because ultimately the press was chosen, but we know now that there were probably irregularities in the way she was chosen. So T that Lara mentioned is at the extreme right of this party and she had to hold the two sides together without with very technical measures, she had no vision for, you know, for France from from her conservative viewpoint. And you mentioned in my question, or in one of the questions you asked me, you mentioned that because accused, you know, Macron of stealing her ideas, but that is a huge endorsement for her orders to go and vote for Macron. So I think that was a huge mistake. There's again, a lack of vision on the right. And that has been problematic, I think. Lara anything left on said there. No, that's, that's pretty good summary I'd say yes the fragmentation of the left is is a huge problem we saw almost a replay of what happened in 2002. Joseph, who should have been in the runoff and could quite possibly have been a good socialist president for France, lost just because I think there were five socialist candidates or shoot offs of social and when she eventually pulled out of the race, but when she decided to be a candidate everyone said you're you're you're destroying this just like you did in 2002. I think that on both sides that the real problem is a dearth of charismatic politicians. The socialist who had no one who's who's just who you'd want to vote for no one convincing at all and 2017 Benoit Amon, who was the candidate then I think he got 6% of a vote, and it looks like any delgo will get to 2 and a half percent, which I mean, an absolute catastrophe for a once proud party and they had to sell their headquarters and so far you know headquarters big historic building that was bought by me to have Francois Hollande's presidency was pretty disastrous. And I think they've had a hard time living living that down. I mean, a couple of examples to show the importance of having charismatic leaders, Emmanuel mentioned that the Communist Party may surpass the socialist on Sunday. And that is because the Communist have a guy called Fabien Oussell, who's, who's likeable. And he's been one of the surprises of this campaign, and he will perform. Yeah, he's not going to make it to the run out but he will almost certainly perform better than and he's out to go. And regarding the Republican, Edward Philippe, who originally was a jupe East from the Republican was incredibly popular as Prime Minister and that's why my con got rid of him. He very loyally said I will not stand against Emmanuel Macron, but he's sort of waiting in the wings. And I could see a I could imagine a rejuvenation of the Republican around the character of Edward Philippe that that is not at all impossible. I think that that Macron handled Nicolas Sarkozy very well because he knew there's this lovely expression French carcé dans le sens du poil, you know, like the way if you're patting a cat or dog or whatever and Macron flattered Sarkozy invited him and Carla Bruni to the 80s a for meals he sought advice from him. And who knows maybe maybe there's some secret deal between them and Macron will appoint Sarkozy to some wonderful position I don't know. But I think I I sensed a certain misogyny also in Sarkozy vis-à-vis Valerie Pecress I could be wrong about that but you know he feels that the Republican is his it's his party. I think he was very annoyed that he wasn't their candidate five years ago. And, and he just thinks Pecress isn't good enough to lead his party. So that's pretty much all I would have to say about. A quick query just on an algo, especially if we look at the past kind of five, six years of French politics, the rise of the gilet jaune for example there's this great sense of you know the Perry urban versus the urban. So what extent was is a daggers problem that she's from Paris, if she was the mayor of Lille would that make a big difference do you think, or the socialist just not at the races anyway. One here's that said, I don't know Jack Shirak was mayor of Paris and he became president. I'm not sure that's a reason I mean, I live in Paris and frankly I don't think she runs the city very well. She's always doing all these foreign policy initiatives but the streets are full of holes, you know, and, and I think people want, they want it that city is dirty. You know, and she the only thing she's good for is cyclist and as a cyclist I appreciate that there are a lot of new bicycle lanes which is great and bicycle parking lots, you know with those those bars where you where you attach your bicycle. But aside from that I can't, I really wouldn't have anything good to say about the way she's around the city. And I think there's a strong feeling that if, if she can't run the city properly, how is she going to run the country. I did actually notice that on a recent trip to Paris what you say about cyclists manual before moving on to the question from from Alan Dukes I want to get to but do you want to do want to comment. And I do think it matters though. I think it matters that she's from Paris. I think it matters linked to what Larry just mentioned that she's not very charismatic because yes, Jack Jack was from Paris, but he was from Coors. You know, he was like that was where he was from. He was well known for being this charismatic guy who was really warm and who would shake your hands and who'd share beer with you and, you know, he was well known for his appearances and I don't like it to the farming kind of big show that we have every year. And, and I need to go doesn't have this Christmas. And on top of that, yes, she's lent to Paris she's seen as a Parisian, and that doesn't work in. So I would say no if it had, it would have been the same with like the mayor of Lille or etc, like a big city, or similar. But certainly, having no kind of regional routing, like corres or, you know, limousine or whatever that that matters, I think. Yeah. And it's, it's an accusation. A portrait against Macron as well, that you know he's, he's an elite candidate. I'm wondering the, the kind of crowded field already had one of those kind of a prison elite. So I wondered if that's okay. Okay, in the interest of time because this is a tremendous conversation where there's loads of questions so I'm going to start putting them just to you individually if that's okay and I'll stick with you. Manuel and there's a question from Alan Dukes who's former finance minister and many other things and also a DRII member, and Alan asks, how likely is it that left wing voters will vote Macron in the second round. Of course, that some of them say that Le Pen cannot be worse than Macron. Yes, indeed. And this is why the gap is, is tightening. I think that's, that's the problem that Macron is facing and this is why in his big rally there. He went on about the social side of his manifesto, because so far he'd been kind of to take Lara's expression can I see the right wing voters. He really tried to focus on the left wing voters. He needs the two legs to walk to the second round and to win eventually. So he needs those left wing voters. I personally still think that there is a glass ceiling for my Le Pen. I think I believe at the last, I believe for several reasons as well we have two weeks between the two rounds. Last year, not that I'm saying it's going to be a repeat, but obviously the debate, the televised debate really killed my Le Pen. And he's not going to do hopefully, or nearly hopefully for her. It was cringing, but she, she, she is much better prepared, but even economically there there's, there's, there are huge questions about how costed her program is. So the two weeks there, Macron is going to each have a huge impact I think he's kind of had a slow campaign so far. I think the left wing voters will come to him a little bit more as we get to the second round, but it won't be a gap like Laha mentioned between 66 and 33. It won't be that gap this time between Macron. That's my prediction but don't hold me to it. A quick change of gear and to you Lara we have a question from Jerry Fitzgerald's Brigadier General retired the Irish Defense Forces. How are you doing, Jerry? Question for Lara. Has US politics and European security impacted the debates to any extent. A Republican president and a return of US first policy could push for a reduction of US NATO involvement in Europe. Sorry, I'll just say that again. And has US politics and European security impacted the debates. Let's leave it at that. Not really. I mean, five years ago Marine Le Pen was pro Trump, and she and actually this time some more like to portray himself as as the, the French Trump. I haven't really heard any mention of US policy and European security. I don't think it's a big issue here. I mean, the Macron going and making speeches and saying, we must have European defense that would that would please people, but no more than that. I mean, it's not. I mean, maybe Sean possibly would have would have talked would have. He would be the most likely to say anti American things and to criticize I mean, it's not like let me put it this way back in 2003 when you have the US laying waste to Iraq. I think there would have been a much stronger anti American feeling. There would have been fairly strong anti Trump or pro Trump feeling Joe Biden does not inspire passions. And the US is just kind of not not a big deal in France at the moment. We're related to this although a separate subject obviously we've already spoken about about Putin but the conflict in Ukraine. Is there anything further you can sail our about how is included on the campaign on thinking specifically about the president's involvement before the conflict official has that included much on the on the discourse and public attitudes towards the president. I think it's helped my call a lot, because he's seen as capable of managing a crisis he's seen as the chief of the armed forces he's seen a lot of people here like everywhere else in Europe people are a bit worried what if the war spreads what if we get into World War three. And I think that they would have confidence in my home to lead them through that and I'm not so sure they'd have confidence in anyone else to do so. So, the war is definitely helped my call in a way, the fact that the campaign has been so subdued and low key and almost inaudible invisible has also helped my call, because he's the incumbent, and people know him and he has that familiarity with which the others have to fight to win and so on so it that is how it has impacted the campaign. It's always like a bit of an auction here moving between different topics I'm going to shift gear again and put a question to you, Emmanuel if I may. I have a question here from Donald Rulicon and I, an IEA member question goes, given that many countries in Europe already have coalition governments in fact I think all bar maybe to Portugal and multi think. Why do you, why do you say it is problematic. So it's a challenging question but a fair one because surely problematic is the antithesis of a strong man autocratic government, which lack checks and balances to limit the scope for public and private excesses I think it's problematic manual. It's problematic in France, in the French system, you know, as Lara pointed out, the present is a monarch, the president wants a, an overall majority, as homogeneous majority as possible. So what what the president doesn't want is certainly a mix and match of, we've had coalition governments in the past between the green the socialist the communists coming together and etc. And we've survived so it was okay. But, you know, if Macron had or Marine Le Pen, let's say Marine Le Pen is elected and she has to negotiate a coalition government between, you know, some some center right conservative voters, the, the Ciot type voters in the Republican and her own camp plus some Zemur maybe if he gets a few MPs elected. She will just have to water down what she wants to do on the domestic scene. And at the same time, several kind of issues are dealt with at European level in different councils and, and that comes from the national government as well you know it's the, the minister for agriculture that goes in the, the council for agriculture so. So Marine Le Pen would have to compose basically and it would be the same for for Macron. Lara mentioned that France, the French president is a monarch, it's exactly that and Macron has behaved like a monarch, despite what he argued he would do the right thing in 2017 he already promised he would have a constitutional reform which we haven't seen. So, so that's what every monarch wants a very homogeneous. So problematic, I meant through the eyes of the present. I don't find it problematic. But the president will find it more difficult to maneuver than a government and a national assembly that just robust a national assembly that just robustance what the government puts before it. Very, very clear analysis, I think we just have time I'm going to put one question to Lara and then a short one to both of you. And again thanks very much for taking the time to be with us you know you're very busy there's a question from Anthony Brogan, I'm a freelance journalist and I have to read it because you'll understand why the question goes what are the speakers use and I'll put this to you Lara on President Macron's foreign policy and climate diplomacy. And how would it change in the Palace of Versailles effect these matters going forward we probably mean the Elisa Palace but it's a nice slip of the tongue. We're talking about Macron being virtually a monarch so foreign policy and climate diplomacy do you have a view Lara. Yeah, my personal view is that I think his foreign policy overall is is quite well no actually I take that back. I was going to say I approve. He loves foreign policy. He's he he's like the super diplomat and poor Jean-Yves Le Drian is foreign minister barely gets a good look in Jean-Yves Le Drian gets to do all the sort of leftovers and he loves the big summit and, you know, being on the world stage and so on. He's quite good at it in as much as he he's engaged and he's got everyone on the telephone all the time and he's constantly fielding ideas and so on. I found it very hard to take when in the first year of his presidency he was a very very chummy, you know, hugging kissing kind of with people like Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, a Putin at some stages as well. I wouldn't like. I think he overdoes it sometimes. On the other hand, I think I would approve very much of his fervor for the European Union. He isn't a very convinced European. I think that to a certain extent Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel are certainly his allies. I don't I think he was quite instrumental in getting them chosen. And I would I would approve. I think he's done a lot for Europe. He really has climate policy. I have sort of mixed feelings. I think it's actual record on climate. He's talked a lot, but I think he hasn't really done that much. I'm, I'm kind of really he's, he's placing all of the investment now in nuclear power, and Le Pen also says is very gung-ho on nuclear power. And again, just personally, I have serious reservations about nuclear power. I think that, you know, we have Fukushima and Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. We've had all these past examples and I'd rather turn down the thermostat. Then take the risk personally and I don't and he's kind of using France's nuclear power program, which is more than 70% of their energy and they're very fortunate because they're not reliant on on Russian gas the way Germany is. But he's using that as a sort of alibi. It's like, look, we're fighting climate change because we have nuclear power. It's not quite good enough for me. In the interest of time, I'm actually going to leave that as the last question, but I'm going to ask you Manuel, because I saw you actively listening as you were throughout, but specifically there when Lara was talking about climate and nuclear. Do you want to make a comment, Manuel? No, I just wanted to say that I forgot to mention something in my remarks, but what Lara just said, in a post-fercal era Macron is really setting himself up to be the new leader of the European Union. That's his legacy. That's what he wants it to be. And when you look at his program, I did say in his manifesto, he doesn't mention Europe, March and etc. But actually, if you go back to the last one speech he delivered in September 2017, you have all of what he wants to do for, you know, for the next five years there. And it's all there. And yes, he wants to be the new leader of the European Union. And that's where, as Lara mentioned, yeah, it's his legacy. That's how he wants to be remembered. A really true dedicated European. And can I just say, I will be looking at if he wins, whether he comes out, wherever he'll locate his victory stage on the European anthem. Because that really boosted me in 2017. I don't know whether he'll do the same this year. A tiny follow-up question, right? Just to clarify what you're saying Manuel, in terms of, you know, his European ambitions, is that leading from the European Council as the president? Or do you actually envisage him stepping away into Brussels to try to obtain one of the top jobs that some people have discussed, as difficult as it would be for a character like Macron. But what are his ambitions in that respect? No, no, for now, I think it's leading from the European Council. I think he's preparing the 2024 elections. He's thinking transnational lists. He's thinking all of this. He's got his troops in Renew now, and he's going to push that as much as possible. And he wants the next generation, next generation EU package of collectivisation of debt and etc. It should be a model for the Economic Monetary Union and other programmes that the EU would develop. That's my idea. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time and for the clear and thoughtful analysis. It's always a real pleasure. I'd like to thank on our side as well. Alex Conway for pulling the event together from the research room, which can you all the best. Thank you very much for your time. And I guess we may regroup in future to discuss the outcome of the French presidential elections if we have the time. So thank you everybody and have a good afternoon.