French National Assembly: What's next for the three political blocs?
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00:00We start with French politics, three days after the inconclusive parliamentary elections.
00:06Today, far-right MPs from the National Rally have been arriving at the National Assembly,
00:12many for the first time after the party increased its number of seats from 89 to 143.
00:20However, their goal of securing a majority in Parliament was dashed on Sunday
00:26by a broad left-wing coalition which won 193 seats.
00:30Today though, Marine Le Pen insisted her party's victory had only been delayed.
00:40We will play the role that our voters gave us.
00:43Even if a certain number of manoeuvres, notably manoeuvres like retreats from certain races
00:48that happened on a huge scale, we were deprived of an absolute majority.
00:52It's just been delayed.
00:56Because we cannot indefinitely skew national representation,
01:00like the name indicates, National Assembly needs to be a reflection of all the French.
01:08It is not the case today, it will be the case tomorrow.
01:14Our reporter Clovis Casali is at Parliament today, he joins me live now.
01:19Clovis, MPs from the National Rally arriving, we heard Marine Le Pen there.
01:24And one of the party's messages today is that the campaign has resumed.
01:30What does that mean?
01:33Indeed, it's a rather strange thing to say as you enter Parliament with your newly elected MPs.
01:41For many, it was the pinnacle of their career.
01:44And now they're told by their party boss, the boss of the far-right party,
01:48the National Rally, that they need to campaign.
01:50Why? Because, basically, Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen think there will be new elections,
01:56new snap elections very soon, in a year or so.
01:59Because no bloc has an absolute majority in Parliament.
02:04That was the dream of the French far-right, to get an absolute majority.
02:08Polls told them it was a possibility.
02:10Ultimately, they finished third, so it's clearly not the case.
02:14And Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen saying there will be snap elections in a year or so.
02:19And, of course, they're also eyeing the presidential election of 2027.
02:24Let's take a listen to Jordan Bardella explaining a bit his position
02:28and basically telling his troops they need to be in fighting mode.
02:34There's disappointment among the millions of French people who voted Patriot,
02:3840% in the European elections, 37% who voted for us in the second round of the parliamentary polls
02:44and who now see the far-left at the gates of power.
02:47So, of course, millions of French people are disappointed.
02:50But we got three times the number of votes and we're now the biggest political force in the National Assembly.
02:56So, we're going to keep working and it's the reason why, rather than the word defeat,
03:00I prefer the expression deferred victory.
03:04So, that's the view then from the national rally today, Clovis.
03:08Meanwhile, tell us about efforts to try and form a government
03:12because we still have no government and no idea of who might be the Prime Minister.
03:17Well, we know that the National Rally, the French far-right,
03:21will be excluded from any talks to form a coalition.
03:24They don't have any allies in Parliament, apart from 17 who left the Conservative Party,
03:30the mainstream Conservative, Les Républicains, and who joined the alliance with the National Rally.
03:36So, all eyes are on the centrist bloc and the left-wing bloc.
03:40The centrist bloc, President Macron's bloc, trying to form some kind of alliance
03:45going from the right-wing, the Conservative right, to the Communists
03:51and they want to exclude the France en bas, the radical left.
03:54That could be one option of, say, a coalition or at least a bloc that would be able to pass laws in Parliament,
04:02have some kind of majority.
04:04The other possibility, of course, is having an alliance around the left-wing
04:07because it is the not-new popular front, the left that finished first in the legislative elections.
04:13When you talk to socialists, they tell you it does seem that a Prime Minister will be picked from the socialist ranks,
04:19not from France en bas, the radical left, because they are too controversial, they have too many enemies.
04:25But again, I was talking minutes ago to a member of Emmanuel Macron's side, the centrist bloc,
04:32and she's telling me, for the time being, negotiations between centrists and the left,
04:36very difficult, proving very complicated, and we could end up with the current government
04:42acting as interim government and then, who knows, maybe a government made up of technocrats,
04:48this until next year, in a year with possible new snap elections.