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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, again, everyone. I'm Brigid Bergin in for Brian today. In France and Britain, two major elections happening this week are poised to overturn current long-term ruling parties in both countries. In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, head of the Conservative Party, will square off against his Labour Party opponent, Keir Starmer, in an election tomorrow, July 4th. In France, President Emmanuel Macron has called for a snap election of his country's National Assembly. The first round, which took place last Sunday, put the far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, in first place.

President Macron's party, the more centrist Ensemble Alliance, came in third place behind the left-wing New Popular Front coalition. Since no party got a clear majority, the country is now headed to a run-off election that will take place this coming Sunday. The elections in both countries could signify a turning point for the long-standing political parties who have held power over their countries for years. The Washington Post says the UK's Conservatives face "an extinction-level event" after 14 years in power, while Politico Europe is reporting on the machinations of opposing parties in France, including candidates bowing out of races in an attempt to block Le Pen from winning an outright majority.

Joining us now to break down the latest on both elections and what's at stake are two journalists from The Economist. They are Paris bureau chief, Sophie Pedder, and Britain editor, Andrew Palmer. Sophie and Andrew, welcome to WNYC.

Andrew Palmer: Hello.

Sophie Pedder: Thanks very much.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we're going to open the phones for those people with ties to either France or the United Kingdom. Help us report the story. What are some of the biggest issues in either country you have ties to? What issues are your friends and family members most concerned about? Why do you think that both current parties in power, who have held power for so long, are facing backlash now? Or is there anything else you want to share? Whether you have friends and family there or yourself are going to vote in either country, give us a call. The number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text that number.

Sophie, let's talk about what's going on in this French election. In order to do that, we need to first talk about the European Union parliamentary elections, which took place in early June. That's the European-wide election in which 27 member states elected 720 members of the European Parliament to represent more than 450 million people. I hope everyone kept up with those numbers. By way of background, can you just broadly explain the political significance of that for member states of the European Union?

Sophie Pedder: It's interesting because that vote, although it does have significance for Europe, often it's treated by voters in each of the member states as almost like a midterm vote. They don't feel that it's really a high-stakes election, and they often use it as a chance to cast a protest vote. I think that's what the feeling was initially in France, that the National Rally, that's Marine Le Pen's party, did so well, and she came top in voting at that European election.

There was a sense, I think, in some voters, and certainly that must have been President Macron's reaction, that this was just one of those things voters do, sanction the president, they're feeling grumpy. He then called his own snap election for parliamentary elections here in France, and it's turned out to be pretty much exactly the same picture. I think the link between the European vote and the national vote is possibly closer than some people had assumed.

Brigid Bergin: A lot of EU countries ultimately voted for more liberal or centrist politicians. As you said, the French voted for the right-wing government to represent them in the EU. Can you talk a little bit more about how President Emmanuel Macron called the snap election of parliament for his own country? That's France's National Assembly. What was the political calculation you think Macron was making in that?

Sophie Pedder: The first thing to note is it came out of the blue for everybody. Nobody was expecting it, and not only his own prime minister. He informed members of his government, the most senior figures around him, literally in the hours before he made this announcement. It was completely unexpected. The other thing to know is that it was something that has clearly been a problem. The context for him is he's had this problem, which is he's been running a minority government.

Emmanuel Macron was re-elected as president in 2022, but then at parliamentary elections that followed immediately afterwards, he did not get a majority. He lost it, and that's made it very difficult for him. He's found it almost impossible to pass difficult legislation without forcing it through parliament, which makes everyone very angry. This deadlock has been coming at him. He was feeling already that his government might be forced into a no-confidence vote in the autumn when it tried to pass its budget.

Macron is one of these people who really-- He hates being boxed into a corner. He doesn't like having to take decisions when it suits other people. Therefore, I think that he was trying to take the initiative, call this election straight away, perhaps catch people unawares and perhaps unprepared. Particularly on the left, he thought that the parties wouldn't get their act together, and that he could then possibly come out of it with a victory or at least something that was a bit more to his advantage, but that really isn't the way it looks now.

I think that's the best explanation. There is one argument that he's trying to look ahead to 2027, and that's when France holds its next presidential election. When Macron is term-limited, he can't run again. He may have been thinking that by in a way, letting the far right into power at this point, it might weaken them, show voters it's much more difficult to govern than they claim, at least the far right claims on the campaign trail, and that might stop Marine Le Pen getting into the presidency in 2027. Either way, this was a huge, huge gamble for him to have taken.

Brigid Bergin: Yes, and that certainly sounds like playing a very risky long game if that is in fact the strategy there. Sophie, could you tell us a little bit more about what you are seeing ahead of the second round of voting coming this Sunday? We know that Macron's party was not successful in the first round, but as I mentioned in the introduction, it sounds like there is some maybe strategic collaboration among the other parties with some candidates dropping out. What's your sense of what's happening on the ground, and do you have a sense of what that might mean for this weekend?

Sophie Pedder: Yes, you're right. What has happened has been these tactical arrangements in about 200 or so constituencies out of the 577. What this means is that you have a two-round system in France. You have a qualifying threshold in the first round, and you go through to the second. You can have sometimes three or even more parties who qualify and get over that threshold, but if you do that, if you maintain all those candidates in the second round against the National Rally, there is a chance that the anti-National Rally vote is split.

What these parties have been looking at is ways in which voluntarily the third place, so the least well-placed candidate, steps down. You've seen this happen. You've got a whole raft of them from the left who've stepped down when Macron's party looks better placed, and you've seen a whole raft of them from Macron's party when the left looks better placed. That doesn't mean that the two, the left alliance and Macron's party, are cooperating together in an organized way, but they are behind them is this sense of trying to stop Marine Le Pen from getting a majority.

I think it looks now much harder for her to get a majority. I think the second round will be very, very tough for her. You need 289 seats. She looks like she may fall 20, 30, even more seats short of that. These tactical arrangements may well have been an efficient way to reduce her vote. The trouble is that even if that happens, she is still likely to be the biggest party in parliament. That means that President Macron may still have to ask her, as a first move, if she can try and form a government.

Even without that majority, she's clearly going to be influential, she's clearly going to be dominant, and she may well think that she can have a go at stitching together [inaudible 00:09:29] those final seats that it will take to get over the line and get herself a majority. We are not out of the woods yet. It's just still a huge amount of uncertainty about what happens on Sunday and the days after.

Brigid Bergin: If you're just joining us now, my guests are Sophie Pedder and Britain editor, Andrew Palmer. Sophie is the Paris bureau chief, both at The Economist. We are talking about these incredibly consequential elections happening tomorrow and this weekend in both France and the UK. Listeners who are connected to France or the United Kingdom, we want your help to report this story.

How are you feeling about these elections? If you are an expat here in New York City, what does it feel like to watch what's happening, or are you participating from here? If you have family there, what are you hearing about the conditions on the ground? Whether it is the living conditions that will help them make up their mind in these elections or watching the campaign, the politics on the ground there? We want to hear from you.

The number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text that number with your stories about what is going on with the elections in France and in the UK. Sophie, just since some of our listeners may be less familiar, if you could give us a little bit of background here on these parties. Marine Le Pen heads France's right wing party, known as the National Rally, to English speakers. Just can you talk a little more about the history of that party and her role in it?

Sophie Pedder: Well, it's a party that was founded back in 1972, actually, by Jean-Marie Le Pen and some of his colleagues. Then it was called the National Front. It was very clearly an extreme right party. It had one of the co-founders had close links to narcissism. It came out of that sort of fascist movement. It was a party where it was known for xenophobia, for antisemitic politics. The way in which it was treated in France was almost like kind of a pariah movement. It was a fringe movement.

It wasn't taken seriously, and it wasn't taken seriously as a party that would ever govern. What happened is that Marine Le Pen, his daughter, somewhat surprisingly to people within the party, because it was quite a macho party in the past, and along came his daughter, she has turned it around in the sense that she's changed its name. She's made it look respectable. She told all its deputies when they turned up to Parliament for the first time, a whole raft of them in 2022, there were 88 who were elected, and they were all told to wear suits and ties and look respectable.

She has made it into a party that increasingly gets treated in France just like a party like any other. That has really changed the landscape. People are no longer ashamed. I went out on the campaign trail yesterday. You ask people in the streets, and they're absolutely happy to tell you that they're going to vote for her party. It is a transformation of the landscape in France, but it is a party that now has as much emphasis on economic policy, it wants to bring down the VAT rate on fuel bills, for example.

It's very concerned about people's cost of living, people on low budgets. It has a very strong base among working class voters. She's managed to do this. This is a combination of identity politics, classic culture war stuff with a quite a left wing, I would say, economic agenda, which also goes down very well with voters.

Brigid Bergin: We've gotten a primer on what to watch for in the French election happening this weekend. Let's move on to the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak heads the country's conservative party, also known as the Tories. His opponent, Keir Starmer, represents the Labor Party. Andrew, Prime Minister Sunak, similar to President Macron, also called for an early election at the end of May. Some listeners might have seen the footage of him standing out in the rain on Downing Street when he made that announcement. Why did he call for an early election?

Andrew Palmer: Well, he had less leeway than President Macron in the sense that an election had to be held by the end of this year no matter what. He chose to go a little earlier, and that was, again, a surprise. People are still scratching their head over it. Frankly, it didn't seem like a good idea at the time, and it seems like a terrible one now. The conservatives, Mr. Sunak, has run a campaign, which has been distinguished by a number of unforced errors and gaffes, including most notoriously when he came home early from the D-Day celebrations in Normandy in order to do a broadcast interview.

That didn't play well at all back home. He called that election at the time that the Tories were trailing Labor in the polls by about 20 percentage points. Nothing really has changed. We vote tomorrow here in Britain, and that gap is roughly the same. The expectations over that period for a Labor victory have hardened into expectations of a really historic landslide win for the Labor Party.

Brigid Bergin: Andrew, for listeners who are not familiar, what are each of the parties biggest platforms?

Andrew Palmer: Oddly, the platforms are not that different. One of the jobs that Labor has set itself is to reassure voters that they're not going to raise taxes, spend wildly, and generally blow up the economy. In order to reassure voters about that, they have cleaved very closely to what the government, the conservative government, has been doing and has pledged. There are some differences. Labor tends to promote and emphasize growth more than the Tories do.

They are keener on net zero, decarbonization, and the green agenda. There are some things, but I think really this election is less about policy and more about vibes. What Labor is saying is you've had 14 years of the Tories, it hasn't gone very well, and now is your chance for stability by changing government. It's much more around that sense of exhaustion around the current Tory government and the opportunity for change with the Tories by contrast saying, "Don't throw it all away. Don't give it to Labor."

It hasn't been a campaign fought on policy, frankly. It's been much more about the Tory record and whether people are sufficiently fed up with them that they're willing to boot them out.

Brigid Bergin: Certainly, vibes in the economy is something we've talked about pretty extensively about the election here in the US, particularly related to inflation. In the UK, there is what it's commonly referred to as the cost of living crisis. Andrew, for our listeners who might not be familiar, can you explain what that means and how that's felt by British citizens?

Andrew Palmer: Sure. The cost of living crisis is basically the idea that because of rising inflation, there was a squeeze in people's pockets. We had peak inflation here in the UK of 11%. That was extremely difficult for people. That was driven in large part by a spike in energy prices, but food prices went up too. That frankly has kind of faded as an issue as inflation has fallen back. Inflation is now back to 2%, which is the official target of the central bank here.

Although prices have risen, they are still higher than they were, and they continue to go up, but at a slower rate. Therefore, people definitely feel those pressures. It's less top of mind as an issue now. What it has done though is bring to the fore the question of economic growth more generally. Everything in Britain would work a bit better, and some would say a lot better, if the economy was growing faster. Whereas the US is zipping along really, really happily, the UK economy has been very stagnant in terms of productivity for years and years.

This goes right back to the financial crisis in 2008 to 2009. A lot of the ground which Labor is trying to lay is we want to mandate to try and pep up this growth rate. That gives us sufficient tax revenues to improve public services, which are really in a pretty bad state, but also improves your living standards. I would say the cost of living has moved a little bit off the radar, and it's much more generally about the long-term health of the British economy.

Brigid Bergin: If you're just joining us, I'm Brigid Bergin from the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. I'm talking with The Economist's Paris Bureau Chief Sophie Pedder and Britain Editor Andrew Palmer about two major elections in both countries happening this week. Andrew, I got a text from a listener who wrote, "Expat Brit here. All family in the UK apart from my own. Austerity, Brexit, and the COVID fiascos have all fed into wage stagnation.

Poor inflationary recovery since the pandemic and enormous increase in food bank usage and a massive feeling of malaise. The incumbent party have consistently blamed it on immigration, much like Trump, but it's largely to do with how the government have handled pretty much everything as poorly as they possibly could. I voted to remove my incumbent because she is vile, but it's not actually the person I would've voted for if we had proportional representation."

For the items that that listener lists as some of the issues that they are voting on, and also for the point they raise about this issue of hunger being a present issue, do you have any reaction to that? Do you think that that is an accurate assessment?

Andrew Palmer: I think what that is is a really nice summation of a feeling around the Conservatives, which is that you can look back over the year since 2016, in particular, which was when the Brexit referendum was. Even before that when austerity, which was this program of very harsh budget cuts, that the first story government put in, all of that has created a sense of endless chaos. Since 2016, Britain has had five prime ministers including the shortest-lived in history, Liz Truss, who hangs over this whole campaign as a nail in the coffin of the Tory reputation for economic competence.

I think your listener has quite accurately conjured up this idea that tons of things have gone wrong. There hasn't been a sense of stable governance here for a long time. Now, individual voters are going to feel differently about some of these things. You could argue that the pandemic was luck. Some people continue to believe that Brexit was a good idea, although their number is dwindling. Austerity, you could make the case that that was necessary after the financial crisis.

Equally, you could say it went far too far, and it is indubitably the case that public services here are in trouble. We have a health service where waiting lists are very, very long. We have a prison system, which is basically full up, and one of the first things a new government would have to deal with is that problem. I would say there are lots of different items in your listener's summation of where he or she is, but the overall sense of emotion around the Tory government is very, very familiar.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to our phones. Joe in Bushwick, thanks for calling.

Joe: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I went to university in France, and I have a lot of French friends who keep me abreast of what's going on there. One thing that I've seen that seems pivotal is with the court on [unintelligible 00:22:04] where the Republicans will break and where the left will break. I've seen a lot of accusations from the center that the left is actually as big a threat to democracy as the right. I wanted to know if there's any credibility to that claim. Take my answer off the air, thanks.

Brigid Bergin: Joe, thanks for that call. Go ahead, Sophie.

Sophie Pedder: Well, yes, I'm guessing he wanted to ask me that question. It's a very good one. The left-wing alliance is something that was formed for this election. It's made up of four parties. They range from the moderate end of this alliance. That would be the Socialist, the Greens, through the Communist party, to on the hard left is Jean Mélenchon's Group, which is a party called Insoumise La France. It is an absolute rag bag of everything from anti-capitalists, to former Truss kiss, to really people who are on the fringes of the believing and respecting the democratic process.

The whole dilemma at the center of this tactical quest this week to try to block Marine Le Pen on the extreme right, on the far right, has been whether or not you are prepared to stand down. Imagine you're a centrist candidate. You're standing for election for Emmanuel Macron's party, and you have come into third place, and you are expected to stand down faced with a candidate from Mélenchon's hard left.

That is a really difficult ask, and it's difficult to expect voters to vote for you again in those circumstances. It's much easier if the second-place candidate is a moderate Socialist, a moderate Green, someone who you think is basically respectful of the democratic process and supports policies that are pretty much near the center consensus. This is what we've been [unintelligible 00:24:01] this week. It's going to come down to the decision of each constituency by voters.

If you look at that lineup, and you see that you are faced with the National Rally, so the hard right, or a candidate from the very hard left, it's going to be extremely difficult. We've heard some voters talking and saying that they will actually not vote at all because they can't tolerate that kind of a choice. It may also be that just that is not what you're facing. In some constituencies, you will be given an option. It may not be your taste, you may not particularly like the left, but at least it's a moderate candidate, and you might think better than the National Rally.

You are absolutely right. Your listener is absolutely right. The person who called in, there is a real dilemma for a lot of voters, but it's only in some constituencies. I think that is the way it's going to turn out. It's going to be a very locally-based choice depending on who the alternative is, and whether that alternative is worse or not than the National Rally.

Brigid Bergin: We have another listener who texted in. "I am French, and voted on the left on the first tour. Today I can vote by internet for the second tour. I will vote against the National Rally." Excuse me, my text went away. "For candidates that unite from the left and right, Macron is too arrogant to accept defeat, and he took this initiative to dissolve the parliament against his cabinet's advice not to take that route. It was a disastrous decision.

Macron has been a terrible president in terms of domestic policies. He has received a lot of opposition from all over the country. The problem is, we do not have a strong candidate who could unite the left in the center-left to take the reign of power. It's very scary that Le Pen could be president." Sophie, any response to that? similar to some of the issues I think raised by the caller as well.

Sophie Pedder: Yes. I think on the President's record, it's an interesting one, and there's a bit of a paradox here, because obviously there is no doubt that his governing style irritates a lot of people, that he's seen as very solitary. He does exercise power in a very solitary manner. He sometimes doesn't consult even his own government. He has a manner that grates with a lot of people. However, if you actually look at what's happened in France, he hasn't had that bad a record at all.

Unemployment, for example, is at one of its lowest rates for about 15 years. It's not even a subject of conversation anymore. The firms have such difficulty recruiting people. Unemployment is a subject that's gone away. It used to for years dominate all conversations. When you did polls and asked people what's on their minds, unemployment used to come right at the top. It's not the case anymore. Job creation has been very strong.

We're faced with a little bit of a paradox here that a lot of Western democracies face, and that's that even if you have a track record, particularly an economic track record, it's not often enough. People can still be upset about the way you govern, that they could still not feel it perhaps in their pockets or not recognize that things are as not as bad as they might appear, and that your governing style matters as much as your track record if you want to hold onto your own credibility and your ability to win elections at a time like this.

Brigid Bergin: Before I let you both go, I want to just conclude on what the stakes are for this election. If you could each reflect on what the significance of this moment might be if Conservatives in the UK win and Macron's assembly party in France loses. Andrew, let's start with you.

Andrew Palmer: Well, I think it's a pretty big moment. There is a promise of genuine stability if Labor gets a big majority, not a whopping one, but a big one. The country definitely needs that after a period of chaos. It also sends a useful signal, I think. Britain was one of the first countries in the West to flirt with populism. Brexit was a populous cause. To turn away from that decisively towards a centrist party, not necessarily one that The Economist would agree with on everything, but towards a centrist party is a very encouraging signal I think generally for Britain and potentially for other places too.

Brigid Bergin: Sophie, what about from your perspective?

Sophie Pedder: Well, it's interesting hearing my colleague, Andrew, talking about the UK because what strikes me is we are just so out of sync between the UK and France. UK is coming out, as Andrew just said, of this cycle that has got gone on for the last eight years. France now feels it's entering the popular cycle. We've had seven years under President Macron, which has been really about centrist government, and now the stakes are incredibly high.

In your question, I think you said if he loses. I don't think anyone thinks that he will win this election. The polls certainly don't say that. We're looking at the possibility of the hard rate, not only becoming the biggest party in parliament, but possibly entering government. That is historic. France has not seen that, not in the post-war period. The stakes for France on this weekend but also at the presidential election three years away are incredibly high.

Brigid Bergin: Oh, well, we will leave it there for today. My guests have been Sophie Pedder, Paris bureau chief at The Economist, and Andrew Palmer, Britain editor at The Economist. Thank you both so much for coming on today.

Andrew Palmer: Thank you.

Sophie Pedder: Quite a pleasure to join you. Thank you.

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