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00:00With the prospect of the far-right National Rally getting an overall majority in the second
00:04round of France's legislative elections, other parties are resurrecting the so-called Republican
00:09Front.
00:10The election has thrown up more than 300 three- or four-way second-round run-offs.
00:15This has prompted left-wing and centrist parties to consider giving way to other candidates
00:19better placed to defeat the National Rally.
00:22As of Monday night, more than 180 candidates had withdrawn from races.
00:26Two-thirds of these were from the left-wing New Popular Front and one-third from Emmanuel
00:31Macron's Ensemble coalition.
00:33Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, likely to lose his job after only six months, said keeping
00:38the far-right out of government was the most important thing.
00:41Quite sincerely, the stakes are so high for the French.
00:45I'm secondary in all this.
00:47What I want is to avoid the National Rally having an absolute majority because I sincerely
00:51believe that would be catastrophic for the French, for our pensioners, for their savings.
00:57For National Rally leader Jordan Bardella, the alliance intended to exclude the far-right
01:02is a sign the establishment is worried.
01:05I am not going to give any voting instructions, unlike Mr Macron and Mr Mélenchon.
01:11I believe that the French are intelligent, that they are old enough to decide for themselves.
01:15We are qualified today in 444 constituencies and for change, we must vote for the patriotic
01:21candidates of the National Rally party.
01:23But the left-wing France Insoumise party says the president's coalition has not been clear
01:27enough on urging its third-place candidates to step aside or advising supporters on who
01:32to vote for.
01:35As far as we're concerned, we applied a clear rule, in line with the principles we've always
01:40applied.
01:41It's not one vote for the National Rally, not one more seat for the National Rally.
01:45And we do hope that the Macronist camp will show the same clarity.
01:49And indeed, it's not the case, depending on who you speak to.
01:53289 seats are required for an overall majority.
01:57Failing that, parties will try to form a coalition similar to the one that has governed France
02:01for the past two years.