Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Let's get some broader analysis of the situation and bring in the correspondent Richard Verley,
00:04 who is in Athens, Europe correspondent for Blick. Richard, good evening to you.
00:09 Mitsotakis clearly is trying to cash in on what he sees as his popularity.
00:13 Much more popular than expected. It's important to remind that most of the polls gave him around
00:23 30% of the vote and he got, as you just said, 40.8% of the vote. So that's an important gap
00:31 that's indeed seen here as an earthquake, especially for the left. The left is in disarray
00:37 at the moment. Syriza has managed to get only 20% of the votes and the former socialist party,
00:44 PASOK, is having around 12%. So the big question here, rather than to know whether Mitsotakis will
00:51 win next election, everybody believes he will do so, is what will happen on the left. Will there
00:57 be an infighting between Syriza, led by Alexis Tsipras, and this PASOK social democratic party?
01:04 Indeed, Alexis Tsipras, it wasn't that long ago that he was actually in charge of the country
01:08 and had great ideas and great plans, which all apparently dwindled away. What does this all mean
01:14 for Greece and for Greek people, this current situation, Richard?
01:18 Well, as far as Tsipras is concerned, I talked with a number of Greek people today and all of
01:23 them say that he's too much associated with the past, with the crisis. And there is a real need
01:30 and a real hope here to turn that page. People want to see that crisis behind them. They still
01:36 remember that Greece is a very indebted country, with a debt amounting to around 180% of the GDP,
01:44 but they want to look forward. And probably where Mitsotakis managed to win is that he gave a vision
01:50 for the future. He's also seen as someone who is liked in Brussels, someone who is liked in
01:56 Washington in times of crisis with the war in Ukraine. So Tsipras was rather associated with
02:01 crisis, Mitsotakis with the future, and the result is there.
02:05 Indeed. He's walking a tightrope, though, isn't he, the winner? Because
02:08 whatever he does from now on, of course, he'll be judged very differently.
02:13 Well, the dynamic, the political dynamic is in his favour, but for sure it's important to
02:18 understand that it's a whole new election that will take place on the 25th of June.
02:23 It's a bit difficult to figure out because the Greek electoral system is rather complicated, but