Politics is always divisive: In a democracy, 'you must be divisive otherwise you're selling nothing'

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00:00I want to go to Deepthika Lerone on the touchscreen just to remind viewers tonight, to remind

00:05you where the political landscape is, who holds the power according to predictions.

00:10Absolutely.

00:11So let's just give you a quick recap of the projected number of seats per coalition.

00:16So this is the left-wing alliance, there are 172 to 192 seats projected, of course.

00:24This is the together presidential majority, so that's Emmanuel Macron's parliamentary

00:28group, 150 to 170, and then that far-right alliance here, 132 to 152.

00:35Now we do have the breakdown within that of the individual parties.

00:39So let's give you Emmanuel Macron's together coalition, you have his party there projected

00:46to pick up 95 to 105 seats, and his partners there, 31 to 37 for the democratic movement,

00:5324 to 28 for the horizons.

00:55For the far-right alliance, the National Rally Party and Marine Defense Party projected

01:01to pick up 120 to 136 seats, and Les Républicains about 12 to 16 seats.

01:09And then you have, of course, a new popular front, really the big winners of the evening,

01:13if you like, with that four-party coalition there.

01:17The Greens projected to pick up about 32 to 36 seats, Socialist Party 63 to 69, France

01:23unbowed, that's Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party, projected to pick up 68 to 74 seats, and the

01:29communists there rounding that up with 10 to 12 seats.

01:33So that is really the breakdown of what the next National Assembly could potentially look

01:38like according to these projections.

01:40Dipti Colloron there helping us crunch the numbers as we digest this extraordinary night

01:45in French politics, that political upset with the left-wing alliance doing far better than

01:50had been anticipated and coming out ahead, potentially now in a position to form a government.

01:57Well, we are going to lose shortly Arnaud Dessier of the National Rally.

02:03So just one final question to you, sir, before you have to leave.

02:08We were speaking before about what went wrong.

02:10You blamed effectively the voting system, this two-round voting system.

02:15Isn't it also, though, the kinds of policies that you were selling the French people, issues

02:19of dual nationality, for example, of how immigrants would be integrated into France.

02:25That kind of language was divisive.

02:27And as we can see from these numbers, it hasn't convinced lots of people.

02:30No, it has convinced more than 10 million people.

02:33And politics is always divisive.

02:35That's the reason of democracy.

02:36You have to be divisive, otherwise you are selling nothing.

02:40And I think if you look at the and the people choose, but democracy has been created to

02:47manage these divisions, which are normal.

02:49There is no problem in divisions by itself.

02:52If you look at the program of the National Rally and that's the reason why I joined it,

02:57it's because it's no different from the program of the right that I knew when I was a student.

03:03RPR, UDF, they had a common platform and in the 90s, and it was harder than the one of

03:10the National Rally.

03:12So the problem is on the right.

03:14There is a problem on the right, which are being frightened and afraid by the language

03:20of the left.

03:21And they have to think about that, especially from my political family, Les Républicains.

03:26They really have to have a deep thinking about their lack of strategy because refusing all

03:32islands, alliance on the left and on the right, it means that you lose and you're going nowhere.

03:39Meanwhile, the country will be managed again by an alliance between the centre on the left

03:45or the left and the centre left.

03:47We don't really know tonight, but I'm not sure that's what the Républicain wanted.

03:53I'm not sure that what the people wanted, because when you see the popular vote in the

03:57European election and the first round, there was a clear signal that our program was the

04:05one gathering the most votes.

04:07And if we were in England, we would have a crushing majority tonight.

04:11Well, in England, the voting system is different.

04:12Yeah.

04:13When you look at, just worth saying, your situation, Arnaud, you were one of the architects

04:18of Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential success back in 2007.

04:22If you went back to the you of 2007, would you be joining with the Front National as

04:29it was then?

04:30Yeah, I think we should have done that a long time ago when I was already in favour of that.

04:36Under Jean-Marie Le Pen?

04:37Yeah, because when the Républicain was much stronger at the time, and so to have a little

04:42minority party that is inside your majority is very easy to manage.

04:49And now, that's the total opposite, and it's a more difficult situation to manage.

04:54So for me, it was always necessary to do that.

04:59Otherwise, you're just giving power to the left, and that's what's happening tonight.

05:02I ask you that because Marine Le Pen said she was getting rid of anybody considered

05:06the detestables within her own party, moving aside her father, moving aside those who had

05:11Nazi and neo-Nazi links, and yet you're saying even then, you would have still joined the

05:15party?

05:16Yeah, because there was always an extreme left and an extreme right in any country.

05:21You have to manage them.

05:23In the 70s, there was an extreme right.

05:26The Républicain party took them into the party and made them moderate people.

05:32That's how you manage the extremists.

05:34You welcome...

05:35And by the way, that's exactly what the left is doing, has done right now.

05:38I think it's a good thing.

05:40You take the activists, and you take them inside the system, and they are not activists

05:46and extremists anymore.

05:48That's the beauty of democracy.

05:49That's how it should work.

05:50Christoph Eisberg has joined.

05:51It's shaking your head as Arnaud's talking.

05:53You clearly disagree with the fact that he would consider 10 years ago joining the National

05:56Front.

05:5720 years ago, too.

05:58I think it's an interesting statement, what you just said.

06:00First of all, you mentioned that you thought that politics was the art of division.

06:05It was how to work about division.

06:09That's precisely how democracy...

06:12Manage division.

06:13You have to manage division.

06:14Well, yes, but it's not by having an alliance with those who want the country to be divided.

06:19Because the purpose of the extreme right is to divide the country.

06:24And you've seen that on absolutely every policy topic.

06:27And that's why the only loser tonight is your coalition.

06:33I can say the same about the left.

06:35Division between the rich and the poor, between the Jews and the Muslims.

06:39Yeah, well, yeah, of course.

06:42You're talking on French television to say that politics is about division between the

06:46Jews and the Muslims?

06:47No, you are.

06:48Are we kidding?

06:49Are we kidding?

06:50You're a liar.

06:51You just talked about it.

06:52You're a liar.

06:53It's on the extreme left.

06:54I'm doing that.

06:55You just talked about it.

06:56You're a liar.

06:57You are using...

06:58Everything about our republic.

06:59You are using the problem in Palestine to gather votes from the Muslims against the

07:04Jews.

07:05There shouldn't be any division between the Jews or the Muslims.

07:08It's absolutely crazy to tell this on French television tonight.

07:13And I'm just saying that...

07:14That's exactly what you're doing.

07:16You are doing exactly this thing.

07:18So what are you talking about?

07:19That's what you're doing.

07:20Using the Muslims' votes against the Jews.

07:23What are you talking about?

07:24Let's clarify what's being said here.

07:27You are accusing the left of stirring up aggression because of what's happening in Gaza and that

07:35is encouraging more Muslims to vote for them.

07:37That's your accusation.

07:39There are more Palestinian flags in their rallies than French flags.

07:43What does it mean?

07:44Is that factually accurate?

07:45I'm not so sure.

07:46No, of course it is.

07:47Everybody has eyes to see the images.

07:49Christopher Weisberg, it is true though that it's been a divisive campaign and the Israel-Palestine

07:54issue has come up, hasn't it?

07:56And it's been an issue on the left, arguably anti-Semitism.

07:59It's fair to say that, isn't it?

08:00Well, first of all, I'm not part of the left.

08:02I'm a member of the president coalition, which is called Ensemble, which precisely is not

08:09about this.

08:10The two extremes, the extreme left and the extreme right, are made to divide the people.

08:16So as you just mentioned, the extreme left is raising the issue of Gaza when the extreme

08:23right is raising the issue of dividing the Muslims.

08:26The issue of friends.

08:27No, no, absolutely.

08:28The issue of friends.

08:29That's good to hear.

08:30We should talk about friends.

08:31But that doesn't mean anything.

08:32That doesn't mean anything.

08:33What I'm saying is that tonight, the bet that you made, that was completely against everything

08:38that your leaders standed for for so many years, precisely Mr. Chirac, who always made

08:44a clear border between the extreme right and the right.

08:47And this call was a clear loss.

08:50And that's what's the result of tonight's election.

08:52If you ask me, it was a mistake, because there is no such clear division.

08:57There's no such clear division?

08:58Like I said, no.

08:59There are like 10 guys who fought just like you, and most people lost.

09:04There's no such division.

09:05There's no such division between the Republicans and the National Rally nowadays.

09:08It's not true.

09:09Olivia, we're from the Socialist Party.

09:10Absolutely.

09:11Let's hear from Olivia, shall we?

09:13You're talking about the left.

09:14Let's hear from Olivia, who's from the Socialist Party.

09:16No, Mr. Chirac is a specialist of fake news and so on, so he knows what he's talking about.

09:21I mean, this is not just the point for the French people, the separation you talked about.

09:27And I'm sure that the French people are not that divided.

09:30But the far right use, for sure, is the immigration theme to make the people get against the others.

09:43And you are the one, you belong to this strategy.

09:48You chose this, and you chose to divide people, the French people.

09:54And tonight, they said, we don't want that.

09:58And this is the defeat of your strategy, of the Siotis strategy tonight.

10:03So I just want to say that I think that for the French people, they want change and they

10:13want us to get involved in their everyday problems.

10:18Like the buying power, and the end of the months, and so on.

10:26It was, François Hollande talked about that, about the retirement.

10:34Let's stay with this.

10:35We're going to continue this conversation.

10:37But I want to go to where the gathering is of the National Rally, and let's bring in

10:42Catherine Norris-Trent.

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