France snap elections: Far-right sets its sights on parliamentary majority

Leader Marine Le Pen saying that in the event of the National Rally winning in the election, Jordan Bardella would become Prime Minister, not her. Le Pen saying she is still the one heading instead for the job of president at the next presidential elections, which are not for another three years. Here, let's hear from her. Who will be Prime Minister, George Ann Bardella or you? Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella. And why not you? I'm a woman of my word. I've always told the French people that for months now we've been working with Jordan Bardella as part of a real governing partnership, and we're working with the aim of fulfilling to the best of our ability, the functions that the French people would entrust us with. As you know, I'm working towards the presidency, he's working towards the prime minister's job. There's no reason to change that Marine Le Pen there. Well, meanwhile the far right are also trying to get some kind of alliance together, aren't they Andy? They are indeed. So whilst you've got those talks going on amongst the left-leaning parties, you've also got talks on the far right. So yesterday they held talks in Paris. There were talks on the one hand between Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella from the National Rally and with Marion, Marine Le Pen. She is Marine Le Pen's niece and she's part of Reconquest, which is a far right party, even further to the right of National Rally that was founded by Eric Zummoore. Now, Jordan Bardella said that nothing had been agreed but that talks had been constructive. Marion Marasha Le Pen said she'd take proposals back to Eric Zummoore for consultations. Now, in the past, there has been open warfare between these far right factions, so it will be interesting to see whether or not they can smooth over their differences. Also very significant, Stuart, is that Jordan Bardella appears to have reached out to some members of the Republican Party as well. That's a right mainstream party that a little bit like the socialist, has seen its share of the vote collapse over the last decade. Now, the Republicans actually keeping very quiet about this, not confirming that, but Marine Le Pen saying that on French television, she'd be ready to stand down National rally candidates to leave the field open to Republican candidates if they come to an agreement. Let's broaden it out a little bit, Andy. I mean, this whole crisis, if you deem it as a crisis spurred by the far right gaining so many seats in the European elections, of course, on Sunday. But where on earth are all these extra voters coming from? Because the percentage of the vote that the far right is getting is, is gradually going up and up and up every time there's election here at the moment. That's right. The gains have been very impressive for the far right. For a start, just want to show you this map and you can see those gains. One colour really sticks out here. This is a map that shows the results in electoral districts right across France on Sunday night. Brown really sticking out, dominating. It's the colour used to represent the National Rally here. There are tiny islands of pink for the Socialists of yellow for Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance Party and blue for the Republicans. But really, the National Rally dominating, coming out on top in 93% of French electoral districts, even in regions like Ilde, France, where they came out on top, a huge breakthrough. It's a region. It's the region where it got its lowest score, just shy of 19%, but still beating its closest rival, France, unbowed by a tiny margin. Now, what's also significant is who's voting for National Rally. And there too, we're also seeing significant breakthroughs. So I'm just going to show you some more figures. Now this is research carried out by Ipsos and you can see here the percentage the the vote share, how it's increased amongst certain parts of the population between 2019, the last European elections and 2024 for National Rally. Look at that an an increase in 11% for under 25 year olds. But the real game Stewart coming from the middle classes. Whereas before the support base of National Rally was defined more by people who spent less time in education. Now what we're seeing is support shifting to national rally from higher earning higher educated individuals. Look at that, you've got a 13% increase amongst people with college diplomas, a 10% increase amongst the intermediate professions. That's professions like teachers and nurses, for example. So why are they voting for the far right? Well, they say, they cite concerns about crime insecurity. They say it's harder for them to access public services and it's more difficult for them to make ends meet. The what's particularly new here and what's striking is that higher earning professionals are no longer put off by the stigma of voting for the far right. And that means that Marine Le Pen's efforts to detoxify the party by deploying charismatic, young social media savvy leaders like Jordan Bardella, well, those efforts appear to be paying off. OK, just over two weeks to go. We'll be into those elections here in France. Thanks so much, Andrew Helier from my international affairs desk.