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00:00With under two weeks to go until the first round of the snap parliamentary poll here in France,
00:04the president is defending his decision. Emmanuel Macron calls the move the most responsible.
00:09His decision has pushed France into the political unknown and triggered alliances forming on both
00:14the left as well as the far right.
00:20The solution I've taken is the hardest, the most serious. But it's the most responsible,
00:25the least bad. And I think the mayor is right. At times like these, by definition,
00:29there are no miracles. But changing the prime minister and the government was an easy way out.
00:34Holding a referendum to re-legitimize myself was another approach.
00:38The people have to be able to decide. And I have confidence in the people.
00:46We can now bring in France 24's international affairs editor, Angela Diffley. Angela,
00:49good afternoon. Great to see you. There are several issues dominating this campaign. One
00:54of them is the issue of the ability to govern France. Yes. There's been a lot of discussion
01:00about if it looks like the middle, the centre ground, Macron's party are going to be squeezed.
01:07It is possible that there might be a huge left wing block stretching to a considerable far left
01:16contingent and a huge right wing block equally with a far right contingent,
01:20main far right contingent. And there's a lot of worry about what that will look like in parliament,
01:26whether parliament will become unworkable, because it's likely that such a government
01:34would immediately be toppled in October. They have to hold a they have to vote on the French
01:41budget in October. And it's very likely that a government of either side would immediately
01:46be toppled and throw the country back into chaos. It's really very unclear what would happen.
01:53Macron could not call more legislative elections. You can only do that once a year.
02:00If he were to resign as president, and he has said he won't, then a new president cannot
02:05dissolve the National Assembly either. And so it would be this very
02:09untrodden path, a sort of limbo. There's talk perhaps of some technocrat being appointed instead
02:15because Macron is the person who would appoint such a prime minister. It has to be said Macron
02:20is getting huge flack for this decision to dissolve the National Assembly and call elections.
02:28It has, on the other hand, really concentrated people's minds. And we're seeing a very, very
02:36interesting selection of ideas being discussed in this campaign.
02:42Now, Angela, a violent crime is dominating the airwaves here in France today. How is this playing into the campaign?
02:48Yes, this is two 13-year-old boys who have been charged with the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl
02:57and using anti-Semitic insults. It is a crime which shocks on so many levels.
03:06And has immediately been thrust right into the centre of this political campaign.
03:12It puts right at the front of the campaign two issues. One is the issue of violent crime being
03:22on the increase and a breakdown in law and order. Now that always polls very well for
03:27the Rassemblement National. There is a debate. This happened in 2002 when Jean-Marie Le Pen got in.
03:38What happened was that there was a dramatic violent crime beforehand and it's thought to have
03:42swayed a lot of people's voting intentions. The left always say horrifying such incidents are
03:48isolated. The right say this is an example of what is going on and it should not be disregarded
03:57and people should not be told that it is a figment of their imagination. So that has been
04:01thrust straight into the centre of the campaign. The other issue is of course anti-Semitism. Now
04:06on this, there is a rise in anti-Semitism in France. Both the far right and the far left
04:12are accusing each other. Those who accuse the far right say that the party is rooted in anti-Semitism
04:18and although it professes to have shed it, has not. Those who criticise the far left
04:27say that they have willfully on occasions, members of the far left, blurred the lines between
04:33Israeli government policy and French Jews in France and it is a difficult issue
04:41in the background of this election. France doesn't collect ethnic statistics. There is no
04:47identifiable Jewish vote and in any case this is about the problem of anti-Semitism.
04:56It is not just one community that will be worried by this. And of course those on the far left
05:03are being accused of Islamogoshism. I don't know how we translate that into English.
05:10Yeah, I think what is really interesting about this is that as usual, this very short campaign
05:16has forced issues to the front. As usual, media usually try to tidily address issue after issue,
05:22the environment, the economy. Sometimes things go right to the front of the campaign and this
05:26short campaign has lent itself to that. Thank you very much for that Angela.