Politics is always divisive: In a democracy, 'you must be divisive otherwise you're selling nothing'
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00:00I want to go to Deepthika Lerone on the touchscreen just to remind viewers tonight, to remind
00:05you where the political landscape is, who holds the power according to predictions.
00:10Absolutely.
00:11So let's just give you a quick recap of the projected number of seats per coalition.
00:16So this is the left-wing alliance, there are 172 to 192 seats projected, of course.
00:24This is the together presidential majority, so that's Emmanuel Macron's parliamentary
00:28group, 150 to 170, and then that far-right alliance here, 132 to 152.
00:35Now we do have the breakdown within that of the individual parties.
00:39So let's give you Emmanuel Macron's together coalition, you have his party there projected
00:46to pick up 95 to 105 seats, and his partners there, 31 to 37 for the democratic movement,
00:5324 to 28 for the horizons.
00:55For the far-right alliance, the National Rally Party and Marine Defense Party projected
01:01to pick up 120 to 136 seats, and Les Républicains about 12 to 16 seats.
01:09And then you have, of course, a new popular front, really the big winners of the evening,
01:13if you like, with that four-party coalition there.
01:17The Greens projected to pick up about 32 to 36 seats, Socialist Party 63 to 69, France
01:23unbowed, that's Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party, projected to pick up 68 to 74 seats, and the
01:29communists there rounding that up with 10 to 12 seats.
01:33So that is really the breakdown of what the next National Assembly could potentially look
01:38like according to these projections.
01:40Dipti Colloron there helping us crunch the numbers as we digest this extraordinary night
01:45in French politics, that political upset with the left-wing alliance doing far better than
01:50had been anticipated and coming out ahead, potentially now in a position to form a government.
01:57Well, we are going to lose shortly Arnaud Dessier of the National Rally.
02:03So just one final question to you, sir, before you have to leave.
02:08We were speaking before about what went wrong.
02:10You blamed effectively the voting system, this two-round voting system.
02:15Isn't it also, though, the kinds of policies that you were selling the French people, issues
02:19of dual nationality, for example, of how immigrants would be integrated into France.
02:25That kind of language was divisive.
02:27And as we can see from these numbers, it hasn't convinced lots of people.
02:30No, it has convinced more than 10 million people.
02:33And politics is always divisive.
02:35That's the reason of democracy.
02:36You have to be divisive, otherwise you are selling nothing.
02:40And I think if you look at the and the people choose, but democracy has been created to
02:47manage these divisions, which are normal.
02:49There is no problem in divisions by itself.
02:52If you look at the program of the National Rally and that's the reason why I joined it,
02:57it's because it's no different from the program of the right that I knew when I was a student.
03:03RPR, UDF, they had a common platform and in the 90s, and it was harder than the one of
03:10the National Rally.
03:12So the problem is on the right.
03:14There is a problem on the right, which are being frightened and afraid by the language
03:20of the left.
03:21And they have to think about that, especially from my political family, Les Républicains.
03:26They really have to have a deep thinking about their lack of strategy because refusing all
03:32islands, alliance on the left and on the right, it means that you lose and you're going nowhere.
03:39Meanwhile, the country will be managed again by an alliance between the centre on the left
03:45or the left and the centre left.
03:47We don't really know tonight, but I'm not sure that's what the Républicain wanted.
03:53I'm not sure that what the people wanted, because when you see the popular vote in the
03:57European election and the first round, there was a clear signal that our program was the
04:05one gathering the most votes.
04:07And if we were in England, we would have a crushing majority tonight.
04:11Well, in England, the voting system is different.
04:12Yeah.
04:13When you look at, just worth saying, your situation, Arnaud, you were one of the architects
04:18of Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential success back in 2007.
04:22If you went back to the you of 2007, would you be joining with the Front National as
04:29it was then?
04:30Yeah, I think we should have done that a long time ago when I was already in favour of that.
04:36Under Jean-Marie Le Pen?
04:37Yeah, because when the Républicain was much stronger at the time, and so to have a little
04:42minority party that is inside your majority is very easy to manage.
04:49And now, that's the total opposite, and it's a more difficult situation to manage.
04:54So for me, it was always necessary to do that.
04:59Otherwise, you're just giving power to the left, and that's what's happening tonight.
05:02I ask you that because Marine Le Pen said she was getting rid of anybody considered
05:06the detestables within her own party, moving aside her father, moving aside those who had
05:11Nazi and neo-Nazi links, and yet you're saying even then, you would have still joined the
05:15party?
05:16Yeah, because there was always an extreme left and an extreme right in any country.
05:21You have to manage them.
05:23In the 70s, there was an extreme right.
05:26The Républicain party took them into the party and made them moderate people.
05:32That's how you manage the extremists.
05:34You welcome...
05:35And by the way, that's exactly what the left is doing, has done right now.
05:38I think it's a good thing.
05:40You take the activists, and you take them inside the system, and they are not activists
05:46and extremists anymore.
05:48That's the beauty of democracy.
05:49That's how it should work.
05:50Christoph Eisberg has joined.
05:51It's shaking your head as Arnaud's talking.
05:53You clearly disagree with the fact that he would consider 10 years ago joining the National
05:56Front.
05:5720 years ago, too.
05:58I think it's an interesting statement, what you just said.
06:00First of all, you mentioned that you thought that politics was the art of division.
06:05It was how to work about division.
06:09That's precisely how democracy...
06:12Manage division.
06:13You have to manage division.
06:14Well, yes, but it's not by having an alliance with those who want the country to be divided.
06:19Because the purpose of the extreme right is to divide the country.
06:24And you've seen that on absolutely every policy topic.
06:27And that's why the only loser tonight is your coalition.
06:33I can say the same about the left.
06:35Division between the rich and the poor, between the Jews and the Muslims.
06:39Yeah, well, yeah, of course.
06:42You're talking on French television to say that politics is about division between the
06:46Jews and the Muslims?
06:47No, you are.
06:48Are we kidding?
06:49Are we kidding?
06:50You're a liar.
06:51You just talked about it.
06:52You're a liar.
06:53It's on the extreme left.
06:54I'm doing that.
06:55You just talked about it.
06:56You're a liar.
06:57You are using...
06:58Everything about our republic.
06:59You are using the problem in Palestine to gather votes from the Muslims against the
07:04Jews.
07:05There shouldn't be any division between the Jews or the Muslims.
07:08It's absolutely crazy to tell this on French television tonight.
07:13And I'm just saying that...
07:14That's exactly what you're doing.
07:16You are doing exactly this thing.
07:18So what are you talking about?
07:19That's what you're doing.
07:20Using the Muslims' votes against the Jews.
07:23What are you talking about?
07:24Let's clarify what's being said here.
07:27You are accusing the left of stirring up aggression because of what's happening in Gaza and that
07:35is encouraging more Muslims to vote for them.
07:37That's your accusation.
07:39There are more Palestinian flags in their rallies than French flags.
07:43What does it mean?
07:44Is that factually accurate?
07:45I'm not so sure.
07:46No, of course it is.
07:47Everybody has eyes to see the images.
07:49Christopher Weisberg, it is true though that it's been a divisive campaign and the Israel-Palestine
07:54issue has come up, hasn't it?
07:56And it's been an issue on the left, arguably anti-Semitism.
07:59It's fair to say that, isn't it?
08:00Well, first of all, I'm not part of the left.
08:02I'm a member of the president coalition, which is called Ensemble, which precisely is not
08:09about this.
08:10The two extremes, the extreme left and the extreme right, are made to divide the people.
08:16So as you just mentioned, the extreme left is raising the issue of Gaza when the extreme
08:23right is raising the issue of dividing the Muslims.
08:26The issue of friends.
08:27No, no, absolutely.
08:28The issue of friends.
08:29That's good to hear.
08:30We should talk about friends.
08:31But that doesn't mean anything.
08:32That doesn't mean anything.
08:33What I'm saying is that tonight, the bet that you made, that was completely against everything
08:38that your leaders standed for for so many years, precisely Mr. Chirac, who always made
08:44a clear border between the extreme right and the right.
08:47And this call was a clear loss.
08:50And that's what's the result of tonight's election.
08:52If you ask me, it was a mistake, because there is no such clear division.
08:57There's no such clear division?
08:58Like I said, no.
08:59There are like 10 guys who fought just like you, and most people lost.
09:04There's no such division.
09:05There's no such division between the Republicans and the National Rally nowadays.
09:08It's not true.
09:09Olivia, we're from the Socialist Party.
09:10Absolutely.
09:11Let's hear from Olivia, shall we?
09:13You're talking about the left.
09:14Let's hear from Olivia, who's from the Socialist Party.
09:16No, Mr. Chirac is a specialist of fake news and so on, so he knows what he's talking about.
09:21I mean, this is not just the point for the French people, the separation you talked about.
09:27And I'm sure that the French people are not that divided.
09:30But the far right use, for sure, is the immigration theme to make the people get against the others.
09:43And you are the one, you belong to this strategy.
09:48You chose this, and you chose to divide people, the French people.
09:54And tonight, they said, we don't want that.
09:58And this is the defeat of your strategy, of the Siotis strategy tonight.
10:03So I just want to say that I think that for the French people, they want change and they
10:13want us to get involved in their everyday problems.
10:18Like the buying power, and the end of the months, and so on.
10:26It was, François Hollande talked about that, about the retirement.
10:34Let's stay with this.
10:35We're going to continue this conversation.
10:37But I want to go to where the gathering is of the National Rally, and let's bring in
10:42Catherine Norris-Trent.