Episode Info
- Season6
- Episode6
Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Laura Haim
Laura Haim is a journalist and former spokesperson to President Emmanuel Macron.
Episode Summary
Sir Richard Dearlove who predicted Brexit and Trump has a feeling in his stomach far right candidate Marine Le Pen will beat current President Emmanuel Macron. Together with guest co-host Suzanne Lynch, co-author of Politico Brussels Playbook, they speak with Journalist and former spokesperson to Macron Laura Haim about what that might do for the future of France - and for Europe.
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Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Lynch: And thank you for joining us on this edition of One Decision. I'm Suzanne Lynch, co-author of Politico's Brussels Playbook. I'm speaking to you today from Paris, where we're midway through the French presidential campaign. More on that later, but first I'm going to introduce our contributors on this edition. Laura Hain is a former campaign aide for President Macron in the previous campaign, and Sir Richard Dearlove, who will be very well known to a lot of our listeners, former head of MI6. Thank you very much to both for joining. Laura, we'll start off with you. Could you bring us up to date on where we are with this election? On Sunday, we had the first round and French voters will be going back to the second round on April 24. So, maybe just a bit of an update for our listeners on where things stand at the moment.
INTERVIEW
Hain: So, the good news for Emmanuel Macron is that he's above 26%, and it's really good news for his supporters because there were a lot of uncertainties in the last hours. And it's a very high score for him, he's almost at 28. Nobody expected that and it never happened before for a president in power. The bad news is the classical parties in this French election are completely gone. The candidate of the socialist party, the official candidate of the socialist party, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo is under 2%, which is something like a political Titanic in the French political world. And the candidate are former president Sarkozy, Valérie Pécresse, the classical GOP candidate is also under 5%. So this French election demonstrates that now Emmanuel Macron has to fight the extremes. He has against him Marine Le Pen, which has a very, very high score. She's almost at 24%. He has also Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the French Bernie Sanders who is now at 22%. And there was Éric Zemmour with above 7%. So when you add all the people from the extremes, Marine Le Pen, Éric Zemmour, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, you have basically more than 52% of the French would choose an extreme candidate. And that's the problem in this French election. We don't know how the people who voted for, for instance, Jolie Mélenchon are going, on the runoff in two weeks, to vote. Are they going to choose Emmanuel Macron? Are they going not to vote? I just want to let you know that I know that a few hours ago, Emmanuel Macron sent some text to Jean-Luc Mélenchon because the 22% who voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon are absolutely crucial for Emmanuel Macron's victory in two weeks. Yes.
Lynch: So, exactly, I mean, what you're explaining there, I mean, in the immediate term where we are is that, you know, Macron came first, Le Pen behind him and the two of them will face each other in a rematch, if you like, of 2017. Exactly the same happened back five years ago when those two figures battled it out. But in terms of the broad picture of what this first round of the French presidential election tells us is that we are looking at a major refashioning of French politics, that we are seeing increasing moves to the political extremes and more and more French voters have decided to pick a far right or a far left candidate. And that traditional two party system that has been the fulcrum of French politics for so long is fading. And so, you know, our listeners will be familiar with names like Mitterrand and Chirac, you know, Sarkozy, these parties, you know, are shadows of their former selves now. And it is something that's been happening in other countries across Europe, but we're really seeing this now bedding down in this election. Just getting back to what you said there about Macron, I agree completely that he did better than some of the polls have been suggesting. You know, he had got a bump from the Ukraine war from his handling of that over, you know, the last month. But in the last few days, we saw a tightening of polls that Le Pen was really coming up behind him. Do you think his supporters are going to be happy with that? Or, you know, do you think he's under pressure now from Le Pen in the second round on April 24?
Hain: I think he's under pressure to be president. I mean, this is going to be tight. I mean, you can be optimistic and say, oh, look at the polls, it's going to be, because there are now some polls who are now putting really him well above Marine Le Pen because a lot of people are saying at the end, the French people, especially the people who didn't vote in the first round, and there were millions of people who didn't vote in the first round, are going one more time to serve democracy and vote for Macron. But you're going to have Le Pen, Zemmour, and the part of the far left who are not going to vote for Macron. And that I am sure, and everyone I'm talking with is absolutely sure. It's going to be very tight. It's going to be again like in 2017 about the appearance because we're living in this type of democracy now. The TV debate which is scheduled to happen on April 20 is going to be extremely important because people as usual in the democracy are going to watch and especially with the French mood, who is better, who has the punchline. So he has to be extremely well prepared for this debate. And Suzanne, I just would like to add something about when you were saying a few minutes ago, this election is about the disappearance of the classical parties. It didn't happen in this election. It happened first in the United States with the election of Trump. And then it happened also in 2017 in France when Macron was facing Le Pen. Macron didn't have in 2017 a big party like the traditional Republicans or, like, the socialist party. He was coming from nowhere, and he did a very interesting campaign, and he was on the runoff. And Marine Le Pen was in 2017 from the far right. Now the difference, and that's what is interesting. The far right is splitted. And I think for the people in the United States who are listening, it's quite interesting to watch that in this aspect. Marine Le Pen doesn't look far right anymore, but her party and the people behind her are still far right. But the populist guy, Éric Zemmour, who suddenly appeared four months ago, who is above 7%, he's the far right, and he helped Le Pen to appear less far right. And that's something you have to take into consideration. Le Pen and Zemmour, it's the far right together, and they're above 31, 32% at this moment. So we don't know what's going to happen. And again, I'm part of the people who are saying it's not a done deal. Macron has really to work hard to win this election.
Lynch: So Richard, just bringing you in here, I mean are we looking at the possibility of a problem, of a Le Pen?
Dearlove: Well, my head tells me that Macron should win. I think my stomach tells me that Le Pen may well win. And I mean, I predicted Brexit in the UK, I predicted Trump's election, and I have this feeling, and I have lived and worked in France extensively, that Le Pen actually is going to make it. I'm not making a prediction, but I'm worried that that could be the outcome. Look, it's really between two views of the world. There's Macron, who is like the globalist European candidate, and Le Pen, who is the French identity, the French nationalist candidate. And if you're in an election which has a populist element, I think that when it comes to a choice between two people as opposed to a whole range of candidates, the nationalist identity motivator is much much more powerful, particularly in la France profonde than the globalization agenda, and that's what makes me feel that we're seeing here a sea change. The other thing I would say, and I have sort of been a student of French politics for a long time, is that the party structures in France have never been strong like they have been in the UK. They've always been vulnerable to the intervention of big personalities. And in a way Macron now is the victim of his own success because he got elected without really having any party structure, and he hasn't had that, as it were, base in politics to protect and build his strength as president of the Fifth Republic. And I think now you see the weakness of his political position because he doesn't have a strong party infrastructure behind him. And you know, this is where there's so much difference between French and English politics, because you know, in the politics of the UK generally, the parties are much more important than the personalities, where in France, I mean I would argue that even Chirac, Mitterrand, Marchais was head of the Communist Party, these people had a huge influence on what their parties looked like at a period in time. And I mean I'm not so surprised about the breakdown of the party structure because you've always had this extremist element in French politics. If you go back historically, there's Poujade, and the sort of Poujadist movement for a brief period of time in France was very powerful. You've had the Communist Party which has been huge, it scores over 20% in some presidential elections in the first round, and you know the extreme right has always been there in the background as well, which is an element, you know, that you don't necessarily find at the moment or you haven't found in other European countries. So, I mean, but they're both, for me, it's surprising what's happened. But on the other hand, you can trace the roots of what has happened in certainly in postwar French politics. And the other thing about French politics, which I think is reflected now in this confrontation, is its volatility and the fact that, I mean if you live in France, particularly if you live in Paris, you have never seen street demonstrations and riots like you see in Paris, and this is in, you know, one of the world's most democratic countries. It's extraordinary, and there is that element, and I think that element is expressed in this presidential election.
Lynch: Yeah, I mean picking up on the point you made there at the beginning, this contrast between globalization and the symbol of Macron and Le Pen's politics, we've seen this playbook many times with Trump or Brexit. But Le Pen arguably very successfully campaigned on bread and butter cost of living issues from the get go here, at a time where citizens across Europe and indeed the world are dealing with major inflationary pressures now, major energy price hikes. As Laura was saying, she also benefited from the fact that she had this other far right candidate who out-Le-Penned Le Pen and made her look moderate by some comparison. I mean, we have seen her moderate her views somewhat. She says she no longer thinks that, you know, France should exit the euro, not as anti-EU as she once was, etc. I mean, Laura, do you think that, you know, we're seeing a kind of a clever reconstruction of the Le Pen politician now and that she is a bit more palatable to voters going in?
Hain: It's a really good question because I'm really part of the people who think that she really did a good campaign. And I think because of the Ukraine crisis, Macron decided to be the commander in chief and to be the president in charge of the Ukraine situation. He and his government were extremely worried about what happened one month ago, in Ukraine. He went to Moscow. He went to see Putin, and Ukraine became the surprising political element in this campaign. And you have the perception from many French voters. And we see that in many studies that Le Pen was in the small villages of France. She was talking to the price of gas. She was talking to the market. She was really campaigning like people in America campaign in the primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. And Macron was the commander in chief, the president in charge of a huge international crisis. And there was a very, very big disconnection between the two of them. She did a really interesting campaign, and she succeeded to make people forget about a far right party. And again, on TV she's different. She's going to be better in my opinion in the debate. She looks softer, but make no mistakes. When you take the people who are behind her, when you take the names of the people who are, you know, in charge of the economic structure, the defense structure, sensitive and important issues, they are coming from the Le Pen party, and this is the far right. This is the French far right. And again, she doesn't appear this way. And that's why it's going to be really interesting to see at the end what's happening in France. And also for her, if she's becoming president, how is she going to govern? She knows she's now doing interviews saying, oh, I'm going to have representation of the civil society in the government. So she's really trying to pull herself in the center of the right. And I think it's a lie.
Lynch: I mean, so Richard, you mentioned there about the kind of traditional political protest here in France, and that really in some sense, I completely agree, it's not that surprising, these kinds of trends. But ultimately, one could argue the French voters have a luxury that they have a first round and then they can do the real thing in the second round if you like. I mean, do you think that, you know, there's going to be a collective effort to keep Le Pen out when voters have to vote now between Macron and Le Pen on April 24?
Dearlove: Well, of course, there will be. I mean, you've got this extraordinary, rather like the phrase the beaver vote, you know, you build a dam to keep the extremists out, and that's always a possibility. And in the past, it's always worked, you know, so the extreme candidate has done really badly or relatively badly in the second round, because all sorts of people come together because they realize how, I was gonna say how, maybe I wouldn't say unacceptable, but how shocking an extreme right government could be, particularly in a country like France which has this extraordinary democratic tradition.
Hain: But Richard, I'm sorry to interrupt you for one minute. That's a really interesting perception of what you're saying. You're saying that it's a democracy, but this is a democracy which has deeply changed. And that's the problem of this election. You really see a shift inside the French society of a society which is going to the right, like all democracies.
Dearlove: And also Macron, his policy was going to the right. And if he's elected, it's not the end of the problems for him because he will have after that one month after. I'm not surprised by that because, I mean, I do go to France quite a bit. I have a lot of French friends, and I still speak to a lot of them over the phone, and I'm quite closely connected with some of my former French intelligence and security colleagues. And I think that there is one issue in France, which I think is extremely potent, which is this threat to French cultural identity and the way that the average French person feels about it. When I lived in France, the French security service took me to, I mean, I walked around the African quarter of Marseille. I mean, there's nothing quite like it in any other city in Europe when you see this close-up, and, you know, that now, you know, in some of the suburbs of Paris, you know, which are almost no go areas for the police. I mean, there are lots of aspects of this where you, I mean, we have our problems in the UK, but we don't have, I mean, we have more success, I think, and I'm not boasting about it, but I'm just making a comparison with sort of integration. We actually do have a more diverse and integrated society, and that causes its own problems, but I mean in parts of France it's quite shocking when you, because I mean you wouldn't normally go there if you're a, you know, white Anglo-Saxon male like me, but if you get taken there and you see what it's like for real, I mean you think, my goodness, this is a problem, and I think a lot of French people are really, really worried about this, and this is one of the reasons why, I mean, I think Le Pen has such momentum, and of course, I mean, it was extraordinary to see Zemmour at one point.
Hain: I agree with you. I just want to tell you something. I always said to the people who live in America and in England, you don't know France. You think that France is about the Eiffel Tower, the good food, the beach. And this is a very, very complex country. This is a very different country. And I'm really glad you pointed that out. There are multiple problems. What I think is really interesting at this moment in this election is basically the problem of globalization. And what's happening all over the world in democracies, it's happening in France at this moment with the same issues, security, immigration, the cost of life, COVID, do you deal with lockdown, education, health, those global issues are part of the French campaign. And that's why at this moment, it's a really historical moment for Europe. Because I'm telling you also, yeah. I mean, if Le Pen is elected, this is really going to be a very different Europe. And I really would like to know from both of you, and that's a question I have, and that's a question a lot of people have here, what is going to be the Russian influence on this election?
Lynch: I mean, just before we get into that, just one point, I mean, Sir Richard is right to identify these cultural fault lines in France, which I think have become more pronounced since those terrorist attacks back around 2015 and 2016. But as you mentioned, Laura, I mean, Emmanuel Macron has gone further to the right. I mean, arguably, we can see that happened in other countries where, for example, under David Cameron, the Conservative Party went further to the right because they had Nigel Farage, you know, making these points and they felt like they had to answer them. Similarly, Macron has gone further to the right. So, I mean, you know, it's not just Le Pen maybe tapping into that. It's also Macron and it's no accident. We've got the two of those.
Hain: And that's the problem he's going to have with the Mélenchon voters because the 20% people who voted for Mélenchon, who basically Mélenchon is now becoming the leader of the left movement in France. It's the far left, but it's also the left and people who are quite disillusioned by politics. And the Mélenchon people do not want to vote. Some of them do not want to vote for Macron. This morning, we had some figures about how, again, the Mélenchon voters are going to report their votes. And the 22% of people who voted for Mélenchon, most of them at this moment are saying we're not going to vote because we don't want to choose between Macron and Le Pen or we, you know, we maybe do something different, but we have a problem with Emmanuel Macron. The traces of the yellow vest and the way Macron was dealing with the COVID situation and this expression used by the far left about the lack of freedom. In this vote, it's important. And there are important factors to be taken into consideration.
Lynch: And of course, Mélenchon actually said on Sunday after the first round results came in that he urged voters in support not to give one single vote to Le Pen. He said it several times, but he never mentioned Macron. So, you're absolutely right. The big question now is where are all these votes going to go from the candidates? But getting back to the issue of the dismal performance of the main socialist candidate and the main conservative candidate. I mean, Valérie Pécresse, I mean, you know, less than 5% of the vote, she is now going to not even qualify to get her campaign expenses reimbursed. I mean, do you think she underperformed? What went wrong for Les Républicains?
Hain: I personally think that at this moment when you want to become president of a democracy, you have to manage well your communication. You have to be prepared. You have to do a lot of media trainings. You have to listen to the people who are advising you. And according to what I know, she didn't do that. She's a clever woman. She was a good minister under the president Sarkozy, but appearances were absolutely terrible. She did not know how to speak in front of the camera. Her first big meeting was a catastrophe. She really had a hard time to read the prompter. And unfortunately, in this type now of society in which the campaign is happening on Twitter, Facebook, on cameras, we're in a kind of, unfortunately again for democracy, and the kind of show business thing about democracy. She was not strong enough. And it was striking to see that. And they tried to do something with her. Nobody I know expected her to be under 5%. This is really a big thing also in France for the traditional Republican Party.
Lynch: So Richard, just on that, I mean, you mentioned earlier about the power of personality in French politics and the outsized role it can play. I mean, is that what it came down to here, that Valérie Pécresse did not connect, was not the right person for the moment?
Dearlove: Well, I would say so. I mean, I think that, you know, both the Parti Socialiste and the Républicains, you know, didn't have, you know, charismatic big political figures. And I mean, I haven't followed closely the campaign, but I've been very struck by what Laura says about Pécresse not, as it were, performing well. I think in this day and age of, you know, media domination of media, you've got to be something of a showman. I mean, look at Zelensky in Ukraine, you know, he's a professional actor, and he's turned out to be an extraordinary phenomenon, you know, in the middle of a war. Who would have expected that? But it does actually show you that many, you know, successful politicians, whether it was Reagan or whatever, you know, have this ability to project their personalities and themselves.
Hain: It was really sad. It was really sad to witness her. You know? I remember that I witnessed her when she was doing almost three or four second silence between each sentence.
Lynch: Yeah, yeah. I mean, on the process, she bet some heavyweights like Michel Barnier, people will be familiar with him from the Brexit days, the former French commissioner. You know, she beat him for the nomination, for example. So, I suppose there's gonna be a lot of soul searching within these parties about the candidates they chose. Getting back to another issue you mentioned there, Laura, which is, you know, the role of Russia. There's been a lot of debate globally about Macron's role in this, particularly in the early days of the Ukraine crisis and his decision to speak to Putin and keep up those lines of communication. How did that play among the French public do you think?
Hain: This is difficult to know. And this is a very good question because basically from the beginning, Emmanuel Macron wants to maintain the dialogue with Vladimir Putin. I think he spoke with him more than 14 times since the beginning of the invasion in Ukraine. And he went to Moscow, as you know. He really tried hard to maintain a dialogue because for him, you know, with his role in Europe, he absolutely wants to maintain a dialogue with Putin. And when you speak with some advisers, they're telling you, you know, when there's a war, at one point, you have to speak with the enemy. Otherwise, there's never peace. So I think he's really trying to be a kind of go between, between probably the United States and Russia. I'm not involved in that anymore. However, I was involved in the February, and I remember vividly that forty eight hours before the vote, we were hacked. We were massively hacked. All our marches were hacked. And, you know, there was an investigation which was done. And everybody here now is quite afraid about, you know, some Russian influence in this election. You have to ask you the question, what is better for Putin? Macron or Le Pen? And of course, Le Pen has a long history of connections with Russia.
Lynch: She has publicly backed Putin before, back in, you know, I've been writing about this a long time where the financing of her party. I mean, there's a kind of uncertainty about a €7,000,000 loan that at one point for one of her companies, a Russian bank did to her.
Hain: She was never really clear about that. So we have to watch in the following days what's going to happen on this front.
Lynch: It would be interesting. I mean, what we can say is that it obviously did not affect her standing in this election. I mean, it really did not ease into her vote her prior views or her stated prior views on Putin. As you say, we're into a different ballgame now. We're down to two candidates head to head. A key moment will be April 20 when we have this debate. Famously, this was a disaster for Le Pen back in 2017. She crashed and burned, to use that phrase, during that debate and that really cemented Macron's victory. What we do know, I mean, I was asking Sir Richard earlier in this conversation, is she going to win? The facts are it is going to be a lot closer between Macron and Le Pen than it was five years ago. The polls are all showing that. Back in 2017, Macron got about 66% of the vote versus 33% Le Pen. That margin according to polls and polls that were taken on the night of the first round election, that's much, much tighter. And of course, because her performance was so bad in the debate the first time around, I feel that like if she does anyway pretty well, she will have more statesmanship than she did the first time that may well give her a boost. How do you think, Laura, the campaign now in the last week or so is going to go? Do you think, what is it going to focus on or should focus on in the last days of the campaign?
Hain: I'm going to say that campaign act two just begins and it's a real campaign now. Macron today went to a small village in the north of France in which he was not first yesterday, but he was third. He wanted to meet people who are against him. In this village, they voted for Le Pen and they voted for Mélenchon before voting for him. He is there at this moment. In a few hours, he's going to do an interview on the French twenty-four hours news channel, which is the most watched channel. He's going to be really on the field. He's going to try to get the attention of the French people. He's finally going to campaign. And that has been part of the problem in the first round. People said you didn't campaign. Why you don't do that? Now he's going to campaign in a very aggressive way. And again, the key moment is going to be, in my opinion, two things. The international situation with Ukraine and of course, the TV debate. And of course, maybe, and we don't know what could happen in two weeks in this kind of crazy news world, an international event or domestic event, which could change everything. But we have to take that. It's volatile. And I think Richard, I knew you are saying that, it's volatile, anything is possible.
ANALYSIS WITH SIR RICHARD DEARLOVE
Lynch: And so Richard, I mean, stepping back in the long arc of history, if you like, how do you think Macron has performed as president? You know, he burst onto the scene with this new party back in 2017. He disrupted the traditional landscape of French politics. You know, do you think he has been a strong leader, an effective leader, an influential leader in his first five years in office?
Dearlove: I think, I mean, personally, I think the results are rather mixed. I mean, he's done actually he's done quite well in terms of the French economy, given the adverse circumstances in which the, you know, European economies have found themselves, so overall his economic performance isn't bad. I mean, speaking of someone who knows France but isn't French, I think his sort of arrogance, his detachment have probably damaged him politically. He doesn't come across as a very sympathetic or warm personality. He doesn't come across as caring about la France profonde enough. I'm not saying he doesn't care, and I mean, you know, it's a bit late to try and pull the chestnuts out of the fire two weeks campaigning, and I could see why he'll go off to villages, you know, where they voted for Mélenchon to try to counter that effect. I find him a very angular and unsympathetic figure, but he's obviously very clever and, you know, one can't dispute that. And I mean his political success in getting elected in the first place was quite extraordinary, I mean given that, you know, he was Minister of Finance for Hollande, and you know, he had the vision to detach himself from the Parti Socialiste and define himself politically. That was a huge achievement. I mean the other thing, you know, what I personally, you know, cross swords with him is his vision for Europe, I think, is totally impractical. And of course now, you know, the Franco-German axis is not exactly what it used to be, because not just the personalities have changed, but I mean, the whole business of Ukraine throws up the vital question, you know, can Brussels, the European Commission, do geopolitics? I mean, my definitive answer to that is no way. It hasn't got to happen.
Lynch: Yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean, I know from my own perch in Brussels, I was a reporter there for many years, then in DC and now I'm back in Brussels, and the defining, the overarching change I see in the last five years has been the ascent of France in Europe. You know, I can remember going to press conferences where Hollande was the French president. And, you know, this was the time when Merkel ruled the roost. I mean, Germany was completely dominant. That has changed under Macron. The balance of power shifted. Also, it was, you know, also affected by the decision by Britain to leave the European Union. So, you had this big power exit. So, you now had, you know, the Franco-German more attention on that axis. But France has been very, very dominant over the last few years. It currently holds the presidency of the European Union. And it's got very strong ideas about what the European Union should do, talking about strategic autonomy, having more defense capabilities. But the problem for France, I mean, it's often quipped in Brussels that France wants more Europe, but wants Europe to be more like France. It's got its own ideas of what Europe should be, and not the other 26 countries may not share that.
Dearlove: Well, I absolutely agree. But I mean, you know, the irony is, and I did an open letter, which was published in L'Express, to Macron, about this. I mean, I think one of Macron's fundamental mistakes over Brexit, and this is important geopolitically, is we would never, the Brits would never, being in the EU, would never have allowed France to occupy this dominant position. We would have contested it all the time and done it very successfully. But once we had left, if Macron had been more subtle, he would have understood that a good bilateral relationship with the UK would increase the power of his position in Europe, and we wouldn't have been there to frustrate it. So we could have been a big supporter of Macron's view of Europe had he been a little more subtle about how it might develop in the future. And I mean this is quite a sophisticated line of argument, but particularly in the defense area, because the UK occupies such a massively important position in Europe on defense issues, Macron really did miss a trick, and he could have gone, for example, to Ukraine holding many more cards had he been speaking for the British view as well. But of course, the bilateral relationship between France and the UK at the moment is rubbish.
Lynch: Yeah. I mean, I would say, I mean, one of the things that, I mean, you raise an important question about the role of Brussels geopolitically, but at the end of the day, for better or for worse, the EU is not a defense union. That is not the role of the EU. That's the role of NATO.
Dearlove: It never will be. So why, you know, what on earth was Macron doing talking about Europe?
Hain: I respectfully disagree with you. I think he's really, he's really in the world we live in. He's trying to build up a strong Europe because he knows that no matter which president now there is in the United States, the world is completely different. America is more and more isolationist. They're not going to intervene in Europe when there's a crisis. There were many crises which were provoked by the United States affecting directly Europe. Now I think the Macron vision about Europe is we need a strong Europe. Like, there's a strong Asia. There's a strong United States, and Europe has to be able to defend itself. And that's the base of the Macron doctrine for Europe. And maybe—
Dearlove: But the problem with that is that they're not the only people deciding. There's 26 other countries have decided to—
Hain: But he's trying to— And they're not all on the same page. I know. At least he's trying to unite the 26 members, and he's really trying to do something which was never done before. So I think when you're trying to do something which was never done before, it's never easy at the beginning. But at this moment, due to what's happening with the Syrian crisis, which affected deeply Europe, with the collapse of the Arab Spring, North Africa, all the migrations we saw, and also with basically what's happening in America, the problems in America and, you know, kind of America, which is quite isolationist also now, whichever administration you have. Yes, he really believes that a strong Europe is mandatory and at least he wants to see physically Putin. I don't think President Biden went to see physically Putin and he tried. So of course, when sometimes you're trying, it's not good. But at least when you listen to him and his advisors, he always said that in the world we live in, which is really, really difficult when you're leading a country, it's good to try.
Lynch: One thing we do know is that Marine Le Pen, if she is successful on April 24, will not be looking for more Europe. She has been talking about the exact opposite of bringing more power back to the state and to local level, looking at the whole Schengen free movement zone, even though she's tempered some of those views, she is still a Eurosceptic. So, it would be a huge challenge for Europe and for NATO if Marine Le Pen is successful on April 24. But as we say, look, polls are still showing that Macron is in the lead. It is a much, much tighter contest though than what we saw in 2017. So, you know, as we come to the end of this podcast, it's worth kind of reflecting on what we said at the beginning that, you know, I mean, Richard, you made the point, it's possible. It's a possibility that Le Pen could win this. And if she was to win this, it would have profound implications for Europe, for the West, given that France is such a huge part of the European Union, such a big economy, and a defense player within Europe.
Dearlove: You know, a powerful Europe will depend on three nations, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, with, you know, an outer circle. And if we're talking about, you know, geopolitical influence, then I think that the way forward is going to be, and we've already seen a massive shift in Germany, which is probably the most significant part of the Ukrainian crisis, which is, you know, a commitment to spend probably more than 3% of GDP on defense, and that's where the geopolitical future lies. I'm not talking so much about the economic alliances. But I will make one prediction that if Le Pen is elected, she will make some pretty, I think she'll change her position on NATO, and I think you'll see her change her position on Russia. I think during the campaign, she'll make some very clear statements about trying to detach herself from the image of someone who was close to Putin. I mean, she'll have to, in my view. And actually, I've already spoken to people in Paris about this, I'm pretty sure she's going to make a statement about Russia during the election campaign anyway.
Hain: I just would like to end by saying that nobody at this moment, I think, knows exactly what's going to happen. But I'm sure of one thing: each vote is going to count. And that's the future of Europe that we're talking about with a huge international crisis on a daily basis. So this is a really important election and a choice for Europe.
Lynch: That's it for this week's episode of One Decision. I'm Suzanne Lynch, and it was a pleasure being a guest co-host. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. See you next week.
