Hello and welcome to FaceUp here on France 24.
Donald Trump has shocked the world.
And the aftershocks of Earthquake, Donald have crossed the Atlantic, landing smack in
the middle of the French presidential campaign.
Will his surprise, election up and the political landscape in France, could a populist candidate
such as far-right leader Marine Le Pen, also carry the day next May in France?
Or will what happen in the US stay in the US?
This question will be on voters' mind this Sunday as they cast their ballot for the first
round of the primaries of the Conservative Party.
If the polls are correct, a big if these days.
The winner of that primary will be France's next president.
It's me to discuss Donald Trump and the consequences of his victory here in France.
Philip Thoreau from Radio France Internationale and Stefan De Vries from the Dutch TV station
RTL4.
First, we'll take a listen at some of the numerous reactions to Donald Trump's victory.
Let's take a listen to begin with Marine Le Pen.
It's really the victory of the people against the elite.
I also wish that in France, the people can flip the table of the elites.
Those who share between themselves, what should be going to the French people?
We should listen to the American people.
Just like with the vote on Brexit, it was a vote for change.
It was a backlash against political correctness that forbids people to speak about the threats
facing our country.
I say no to populists who want to turn French people against each other, the elite against
the poor.
It won't lead us anywhere.
We learn something after every election.
An American election has an impact far beyond the US alone.
And this has not been the only recent vote in the world.
We have to face up to this situation and take into account the worry that current global
instabilities have created.
Stefan De Vries, we see a wide variety of reactions.
Let's begin with Marine Le Pen, the first one to react to Trump's victory, saluting
him and the free American people, obviously, she sees a civil lining in his victory.
What's really ironic here is this international alliance of nationalists, because as soon
as it was clear that Trump won the election, all the European populists congratulated him
on Twitter, an American media, by the way.
Marine Le Pen was one of the first.
Of course, Gert Wilders from the Netherlands did the same thing.
Then all the other ones followed.
So it's interesting to see that somehow all these nationalists, all these national populists,
they find each other and they are creating some kind of alliance.
And of course, Marine Le Pen will think, well, if it can happen in the US, then it can happen
here as well.
Of course, the system here is very different, but it's understandable that she thinks that
Trump's victory is good news for her.
Does that really open a totally new horizon for Marine Le Pen, as things stand today?
She would make it to round two of the presidential election, but all the polls indicate that whoever
faces her will be France's next president, that she cannot win that election.
But she seems to think the polls were wrong in the US.
Everyone said Trump would lose.
He wins.
Well, I'll come to the polls in a moment.
Let's all talk about Marine Le Pen to begin with.
There are marked differences between Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen.
I think Marine Le Pen would like to see herself as the French incarnation of what Donald Trump
achieved in the United States against the opinion polls, against all expectations to
actually become the candidate...
Against the establishment.
...to become president of that country, when just prior to the election, excuse me, no
one would have put a penny on him or not much money on him actually beating Hillary Clinton.
So she thinks, my hours, Carl, maybe I am now in a position to take over the presidents
of France.
But that's where the similarity really, I think, comes to an end.
Because if you look at the situation, Donald Trump is outspoken, has come out with racist
comments, has known as a misogynist, has been inspired anger, I think, all around the world
with what he's been talking about.
Whereas Marine Le Pen has tried, since she took over the National Front, to make it into
an acceptable party to snuff out anything that is not seen as being normal in politics.
Although the underlying National Front ideology is still there, she wants it to be a normal
party.
And also, you have to remember that Donald Trump has all the Republican party behind
him in the United States, whereas Marine Le Pen is only a single person on her own with
her own party, but doesn't have a big war machine behind her.
So she's in a much weaker position.
Yes, certainly she's going to come through, probably, and get into the second round of
the two-round presidential elections.
But you don't see this.
But that is where it's going to end, because she's not going to get the popular support
base in France to actually make it through and win enough support to become the next
president.
That's the reaction from the president, François Long.
He openly supported Hillary Clinton.
He was forced to congratulate gingerly Donald Trump.
But maybe he can draw a lesson and maybe mobilize his own camp, because they maybe fear that
what happened in the U.S. could happen here in France.
Well, I think it's too late for him to take, to learn any lessons.
And the situation is not quite comparable.
Really, all the politicians are now saying, we have to listen to the people.
We have to fight the elitist politicians and elitist media, so us.
But at the same time, they are the elites.
For years and years, for decades, they have not been listening to the people.
So now suddenly, there's people, I don't know which people, but what people.
But apparently, it does exist.
We already saw just with Marine Le Penche, there was written, oh non du peuple, in the
name of the people.
Actually this people, which is mainly the angry white man, become the most interesting
or important target of politicians.
But of course, they've been doing, they have not been listening at all to what's happening
in society, because I was not really surprised by the victory of Donald Trump.
It is something that's happening.
It started probably at the beginning of the century already, with the 9-11, I think that's
really the watershed between democracy and populism.
And so it has been a very, very long process, and the victory of Donald Trump is just, well,
probably the summit, or maybe it's the start of a whole new world.
But it is strange that all these politicians, they are just now saying, we have to listen
to the people.
So it's politics.
This is the second item, obviously, on the menu today.
The primaries, the first primaries ever to be held on the conservative side, we'll look
at the polls.
The round one is this coming Sunday, round two is scheduled for the following one on November
27.
Alain Juppé, the former prime minister, has been the frontrunner for quite some time ahead
of the former president, Nicolas Sarkozy.
And out in third position and surging in the polls is Nicolas Sarkozy's prime minister,
François Fillon.
Do you think that the Trump election could also have an effect on this primary?
What is happening as far as the Trump election is concerned is that everybody is using that
election to try to create some hope for them winning the primary.
You've got Nicolas Sarkozy, who is behind Alain Juppé, the former French prime minister
who is leading in the opinion polls, who says, well, look what happened in the United States.
Donald Trump was in second place and he won.
So maybe Alain Juppé will be like Hillary Clinton and when the actual result takes place,
I will come out on top.
Then you have François Fillon, who is also another prime minister under Nicolas Sarkozy,
who was not doing very well and suddenly started making progress in the opinion polls, who's
saying to himself, well, if you see what happened in the United States, the opinion polls got
it wrong.
They never said that Donald Trump was going to win the election.
Maybe the opinion polls in France are also getting it wrong and now I'm seeing my popularity
rating improving.
Maybe I will beat Nicolas Sarkozy and I will also beat Alain Juppé.
So everyone is trying hard to see what they can obtain out of the Donald Trump victory.
But I don't think it's actually going to affect the outcome of that primary beginning
on Sunday, but I think all the candidates in that primary would like to use the illustration
of Donald Trump to try to create an image for themselves to give themselves more hope.
Right.
I mean, it's an important primary because if the polls are correct, this is the designation
of France's next president because Marine Le Pen would be in round two.
The socialists would not make it, so the president would be a conservative.
Yes, absolutely.
But I think we should not listen to the polls anymore, especially in this particular case,
because it's the very first time that there is a primary.
So no one knows who will vote.
Nobody knows.
But it's true that there is a dynamic surrounding Alain Juppé for many, many months now.
So it will be very likely that he will be the winner of the first round this Sunday.
Fionne will, and second, I'm not so sure about that because he comes from far away.
And too late.
And too late, probably, as well.
And Sarkozy still can count on his very loyal group of supporters within his own party.
But this can also be a danger for Nicolas Sarkozy because this is an open primary.
So a lot of people who will probably usually vote for the left, they already said we're
going to vote for in this primary.
And we do not adhere to the politics of this party.
So they can make the difference.
They probably will vote for Alain Juppé.
Because in general, even within his own party, people are really fed up with Nicolas Sarkozy.
So yeah, it will become very, very difficult for him this weekend.
Okay.
We'll obviously be following the first round of this primary here on France 24 and we'll
continue to scrutinize whether the election of Donald Trump is having a lasting effect
on French politics.
We'll see you next week here on FACEHOF.
