John, has the French government done enough to calm the students' anger?

It's a very difficult question to answer that one.

I think, Ben, if you listen to the lycée unions, and like all French unions, they're split.

I think there are four different lycée unions, not quite as many as for big people, where there are sort of 10 different federations, I think.

or more.

It's difficult to believe if you listen to them that they think what the government offered, even though it was pretty generous in the end, I think, is going to be enough.

But, I mean, I looked up the figures.

Are they going to continue until the election? Can you see that? What's the outlook?

Is that fair as well, the criticism?

Well, partly I'm tempted to say that the French police can never win.

Much the same happened during the Gilets Jaunes protests where they were accused of allowing them to get out of control.

and then they were accused of being too violent.

Both were true at different points of those protests, which I covered very closely in Paris and elsewhere.

And I think both could be true on this occasion.

The fact is, I think French police, compared to other countries, are very badly trained or very badly... strange doctrines of crowd control which have kind of encouraged as therefore to become violent maybe more rapidly than they do in other countries the fact is that countries other countries don't use these these grenades which the french police do um they were supposedly they're not real grenades they're supposed to be a stun grenades but if they explode close to people they can cause terrible injuries the same with the um with the rubber bullets or plastic bullets that the police use.

What does it all mean for the country and the big election ahead next year?

John, how are things today in Paris? A little quieter than over the weekend?

Yeah, certainly quieter than Saturday, which was a calamitous day.

As you know, yesterday there was also quite a lot of scattered violence.

Well, I mean, there are sort of groups of young people gathering in the centre of Paris and sort of playing cat and mouse games with the police, but there's nothing very serious happening yet.

But I think it's wrong to think this is all over.

There is another series of demonstrations that's planned by what remains of the Gilets Jaunes movement on... on saturday which is what happened last saturday and that onto that piggyback to much more violent people of the ultra left and then opportunistic uh gangs of kids from the from the from the suburbs who came in pillaging shops and it's possible that that's going to happen again this saturday and then there's a big union march planned for november the 5th and uh i think the government worries that you're getting into a kind of into a vicious spiral of these things getting worse or people trying to compete with the last one and that this may not be over at all.

John, I get a sense from you that you think things might get worse before they get better.

Yeah, I think it's not over, definitely.

Are these going to die out? And do you know where the government found these 3,000 teachers?

Well, on the Lise protests first, I think the government's been hoping all along that the Lise holidays or the school holidays, which start, I think, this weekend, will be a kind of natural firebreak and that the protests will not continue into the holidays or after them in any great scale.

And they do seem to be fading a little, but they're certainly not gone away completely.

It seems to be that it's a bit like a fire in the sense that some of the lises that were very involved in the early days have already gone back to school and others are sort of still coming out.

So it's a very complex situation, I think, to understand or describe.

I think essentially that protest probably is winding down, but there are others coming up, you know, and it could be that what's left of the lise process will merge with others.

Where those 3,000 teachers come from is a good question.

Can you see this being introduced?

So John, where do you see this going then? Could it, you know, spread to other sectors or will it peter out?

It's difficult to know.

You know, I think the government felt that the hope that the weekend itself, when the lycees were closed would be a fire break, but, um, that doesn't seem to have happened so far.

And the danger is that it kind of merges the convergence dilute, they like to say on the far left in, in France with other things like on the seventeenth of October, there's a big nationwide protest against oil prices.

Uh, you know, you can see this possibly merging with other, uh, the many other grievances there are in the country.

And quite honestly, although I say, uh, it spread because sort of the violence attracted attention, I think the fact that it has spread not just as it started in the Banlieue, but it spread to sort of rural parts of France, the small towns, that there, there is obviously an issue out there.

And I think one needs to distinguish between the people who are piggybacking on it, who are partly, I think, people on the far left, partly the kind of usual suspects of the suburban gangs that love a, a fight and a bit of violence.

Tell us more.

Is there anything more they can do, John?

Well, there have been, as you know, there was an announcement last week of an increase in the sort of money you can get back from the government if you're a frequent driver with a sort of medium or low income.

Problem is that that approach is expensive, 450 million euros just for the last three months of the year, but doesn't seem to make much difference to people.

You know, the most you can get over three months is 100 euros, which looks out at a euro a day, which if you're paying...

The price that people are now paying, €2.40 for diesel, that doesn't seem to be very much.

So the anger in rural suburban France is growing and is likely to continue to grow.

People are talking about possibly petrol and diesel at €3 a litre by Christmas, unless the twin crises that are fuelling this problem in Ukraine and the Middle East are eased in some way, which doesn't seem likely.

Now, Bardella's firmly denied the allegations and plans to sue, but what do you make of this, John? Could it harm Le Pen's chances in any

What is in this packet of measures being taken by the French Minister for Finance? We are in the same boat here in terms of the pressure our own government is coming under.

Yeah, I imagine.

Yeah, good evening, Kira.

Well, basically, there are two or three things.

It's not entirely new.

There have been subsidies and bonuses been handed out for three months, but the government has rolled them over and increased them enormously or doubled them in some cases.

Essentially, there are several elements to it.

How do you see this unfolding?

John, firstly, are the yellow vests making a comeback? Conditions feel quite similar as to what they were in 2018.

Well, you could say they were.

I mean, you know, I live in rural France, and I think I've said before on this podcast that the big totems that stand outside supermarkets with fuel prices are in some ways a better... a better gauge of the mood of rural France than opinion polls.

And I remember standing beside those totems with Gilles Lejeune with yellow vests in 2018, and they were something like €1.60 a litre for fuel, and they were furious about that.

Now the same totems, and I pass them every day, smugly because I now have an electric car, say, 220, 230.

So logically, yes, the Gilets Jaunes should be coming back.

The difference, obviously, is that the protests last time were what they saw as government policy driving up fuel prices because there was a new tax coming in, a green tax on petrol and diesel.

Well, John, should we?

Now, wouldn't any kind of French preference be illegal? And what would the EU have to say about it?

Well, yes.

It's not only illegal, it's unconstitutional under the French Constitution.

Under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, people have to be treated equally, and it doesn't say that nationality is an area which that can be suspended for.

So it would be unconstitutional.

She would have, if she really wants to push this policy forward, she would have to have a referendum to change the French constitution.

It would also be against European law, obviously, because under European law, people from other EU countries have equal rights to jobs and opportunities, housing in France, and social benefits, as French people have when they go to other EU countries.

John, is this idea, is it a vote winner amongst French people?

What's caused this split, John?

Well, I think two things.

One, uh, personal, um, animosity or ambition or suspected ambition, and secondly, policy differences.

When, um, Marine Le Pen decided to shove him aside on July the 7th, despite there still being legal problems about her running in the campaign next year, his candidacy, which seemed to be almost certain, was overturned instantly, and he was told, "No, you're no longer presidential candidate, but you might be prime minister." Um, a couple of days after that, the economic advisor of the RN, François Dervaux, who'd been there for several years, uh, apparently approached Bardella and said, "Look, this is crazy.

She's going to have economic policies that don't make sense.

You should run anyway.

You should essentially, uh, rebel against this and, and have your own campaign, and you could win." Uh, he refused to do so, but the news got to Le Pen, um, and she has since not just fired, only fired Dervaux, but has kind of frozen Bardella out of his position of influence within the party.

I mean, can this split undermine Le Pen's chances in any way of, of winning the next presidential election?

John, is this call for a referendum on Islamism and in particular the hijab a shameless populist election stunt by Le Pen?

Yes, but I'm not sure it's going to be a very successful one.

It's been something that they've been talking about for a while and it makes you wonder why they feel it's necessary.

You know, she's already doing so well in the polls.

You would have thought... that her need now is to move more to the center, or at least appeal to the center voters who are kind of thinking of voting for her, or the center-right voters who are thinking of voting for her because they hate all the other possibilities and because they think it's time for change.

But to do something like this, which kind of reminds people of the origins of the party that she's been trying to rub out for, what, 16 years now, is unusual.

The fact that it came up so suddenly as it did by one of the members of the party closest to her, the Somme MP.

Explain what you mean here, John.

What have they got wrong here, John?

Well, you know, if you, you, you m- you remember that at the time of the, uh, the first or sec- the second canicule, the whole debate in the country was on air conditioning, uh, which was, uh, sparked off by, uh, M- Marine Le Pen mostly, I think, which, you know, is a reasonable thing to discuss.

But it seemed to me that the, you know, the, the real lesson of the fact there have been so many really very, very severe periods of heat in France this summer is a lesson about, you know, what's happening to the climate of the country, and what does this mean for the future, not just it can be k- solved by air conditioning.

And now with the wildfires spreading, the worst wildfires in France's recorded history, and not yet, uh, um, over, and August still to come, which is usually the month when the wildfires are the worst in France, the debate has been about whether the government h- uh, didn't order enough planes, whether or not there's enough equipment for the firefighters, all of which are relevant subjects.

But there's been no, very little attempt to, to say, "Look, this, this is a terrible warning to us, and we're going to face even worse summers in the future unless we start thinking seriously about what we're doing." And so it seems to me that i- i- it's, with an election coming up, predictable, if you like, but the, the political debate has been below what, uh, w- the level one would've hoped for or expected, but perhaps what really one should have, uh, anticipated all the same.

John, finally, one group of people who come out with credit from these last few devastating weeks are France's firefighters.

Absolutely, yeah.

I, I think, you know, it's known in France, it's probably known by everyone who, who knows France, but, uh, France doesn't have a, a sort of big professional firefighting body.

And how important are les grandes vacances in general these days, John, in France? How significant are they?

In theory, they shouldn't be as important as they are because people aren't in sort of mass employment in the way that they were and taking breaks in July and August as they used to, you would think.

But you only have to look at the figures for transport in early July or early August for cars on the roads to see that there is still a huge exodus from France or two exoduses The July exodus and the August exodus.

So yeah, France still has that sort of mindset that your holidays are July and August and the big break for people is at this time of year.

Whether that's going to change as climate change is a question as well.

I think it still remains part of the French pattern of life that, you know, a large part of the population, and you may ask since the country says it's not very well off, how they can afford to do so.

And maybe some don't go very far and spend a lot of money, but it's still part of the whole pattern of the way French see the year and see the world, that they should have a July or August or both holidays, whatever else may be happening in the world.

John, what do you think will happen in September when everyone returns? Will it be full speed ahead in the race for the Elysee?

John, is anything expected of Macron here? Has he still got any influence over Donald Trump?

Well, [sighs] does anyone have any influence over Donald Trump? I mean, you know, Trump changes his mind every half hour, it seems, so even if you do have influence in the first half hour, you don't necessarily have it in the second.

I think Macron's relationship with Trump is strange a- and odd.

I mean, he, I think he believes he still has some influence over Trump.

I think he believes he understands Trump better than other people because he actually experienced the first Trump, um, administration and achieved at, at one, one point a reasonably good relationship with him there.

But it's become a dysfunctional relationship, as all relationships with Trump have, and Trump often insults Macron, and Macron doesn't seem to respond.

But i- in this funny sort of way, Trump does still seem to re- respect Macron more than the other leaders, so maybe he has s- a, a tiny bit of influence over him.

Is his vision any closer to being fulfilled?

John, do you think Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen can convince enough voters next year that they can be trusted with the French economy?

Uh, it's an important question, I, I think, Ben.

I mean, it's a question that hasn't really arisen until in the last couple of weeks, and for interesting reasons, it's, it's been raised essentially by Jordan Bardella, the, the likely, uh, candidate of the Rassemblement National next year himself.

Uh, I mean, it turned out to be the real Achilles heel of, of Le Pen i-in the last two elections when she couldn't even really explain her own policies on leaving the euro and leaving the EU and tax and so on.

She stumbled over those things, and it came to a head in the second round especially, and I think that's where it will come to a head this time.

There's no question that the, the, whoever the Rassemblement National candidate will be in the second round will probably top the poll in the first round.

But then people start to look in more detail and more seriously at what the candidates are offering, not just what they're attacking has gone wrong, but saying what they would actually do.

Fire away.

How can we explain it?

Well, I think the first thing you, us to say is to, uh, try and cut through the confusion, which the riots and the football are not necessarily connected, you know? The idea that peoples are so pleased that their team has won the European Champions League that they start smashing up bus shelters is, I think, misplaced, you know? And, uh, just the very fact, as you say, that quite a lot of this violence happened in other cities, in Saint-Étienne, in Lyon, um, in Grenoble.

And, you know, anyone who knows anything about football, uh, Paris Saint-Germain are not popular in those cities.

I mean, essentially, these should be seen as urban riots, rather similar to the ones a couple of years ago which followed the unfortunate killing of a young man by two policemen in circumstances which were, were rather dubious in Western Paris, and that caused riots all around the country.

And again, a lot of the kids who rioted were hardly aware of the incident.

It was something performative, you know, that, that gangs in different, uh, parts of the, uh, multiracial inner suburbs felt the need to prove that they could be just as tough as the other gangs in other suburbs.

And there is, you know, certainly a huge amount of alienation from mainstream society, hatred of the police, drug trafficking.

What's the impact here? Does it help them get their anti-immigration message out?

John, was any surprise that Gabriel Attal announced he's standing, and what did you make of his campaign?

Uh, no, it's no surprise.

He's clearly going to run.

Uh, he's the leader of Macron's party, uh, so he feels he has the right to run.

I thought the interesting thing about the launch was where, you know.

He, he's in some tiny village in, in the Auvergne, and he clearly sees his weakness as being that he is such an urban character that he hasn't, he thinks, enough appeal to suburban, rural, provincial France, you know, and wanted to sort of make himself a kind of man of, of the country people, which he isn't really, not in terms of his history.

His campaign seems to be, you know, a little Macron-ish, you know.

Could he somehow split the far right vote? How influential is he?

John, are fears about Bolloré justified? Is he pushing his far-right views through all the media and culture businesses he owns?

Well, yes.

I mean, [laughs] there doesn't seem to be much doubt about that, and if you look at what he's created with, say, CNews, but also Journal du Dimanche, he, uh, he's taken over what were fairly neutral news, uh, outlets and turned them into propaganda voices essentially.

I mean, say, CNews is, uh, to my mind, often worse than Fox News in the US in the sense it doesn't actually report anything at all.

It just has voices, uh, which are pretty well, um, all in the same direction of suggesting that France is falling apart, crime is rampant, immigration is a disaster, without any other contradicting voice at all.

Journal du Dimanche, very pro-Russian, populist, nationalist propaganda also.

Uh, in the other areas, less so, I think it's fair to say.

John, who's to blame here, and will the French government enforce any meaningful measures?

This week has been about the big question: Will France have a far-right president next year?

[laughs] I think the difference this year is that they can win.

I mean, I was just looking at the history.

You know, it's almost certain now that they're going to be at the top of the poll in the first round.

I mean, if you see that they've been consistently since November, whether it's Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella, it's been them at 33% and, and... or more, and the rest nowhere.

So it's difficult to see that turning around to the point where they don't get in the second round, but more likely that they will top the first round.

And if you go back through all French presidential elections to 1965, there are only three where the candidate who won the first round didn't win the second, and only I think of the last five, uh, whoever topped the first round was the, was the president.

Would a poll like that even, you know, have any effect on persuading Mélenchon to abandon his challenge?

Does he really have a chance?

Surprised that Mélenchon is standing? Not at all, no.

I think Mélenchon will carry on standing until he's no longer standing, uh, at all.

Um, uh, you know, he's into, well into his 70s now.

I, I think this may be his last presidential race, but who knows? No, I mean, he, he was...

E- everyone knew that he would run.

You know, he's the kind of supreme leader of that, uh, organization, which is not really a political party, more like a cult.

Does he have a chance?

John, what do we know at this stage?

Hello, Shane.

Well, it's the most extraordinary event, really.

Spectacular, but also banal, if you like, because these four robbers turned up beside the Louvre, where it's actually beside the river and beside the street.

There's no sort of protection for the building at all.

And they had with them just a kind of thing you see in Paris every day, a sort of ladder that goes up from a truck and has something moving up and down it to remove furniture from flats.

And they pushed that up against the balcony of the first floor of the Apollo Gallery, broke through the window, smashed two cases containing eight or nine jewels, or nine sets of jewels, and escaped within seven minutes with the alarms ringing, but nothing could be done.

I imagine huge question marks hanging over the security system in place.