You have been following the National Front throughout the campaign, after
this defeat despite the successful vote to some extent what is their
future?
I think the plan is to become the main centre-right party
of opposition.
Centre-right.
Macron has got where he has got because he
has profited from civil war among the other parties.
The risk for the Front National is that they descend
into civil war as well because of these changes.
The name will change, we don't know what its new name will
be.
Marine Le Pen will probably have to rethink the policy of leaving the
Eurozone because it isn't popular with the French people.
She may have to rethink the idea of having a
referendum on EU membership because that isn't popular either.
They were decisions between the north of the
country and the South, the North is much more protectionist, the South
is more free market and socially conservative, she has the ghost of
her father Jean-Marie to think about, he would be appalled by any
changes, they were putting on a brave face when I saw them last
night.
You can tell French nationalists are in trouble when even singing
the Marseillaise seems to stick in the throat.
And in a former hunting lodge, far from the grandeur of the Louvre,
the boos of the French Far Right, brought
to ground after a bruising campaign.
But there was no shock at the result, and any
sadness was brief.
The Front National had polled over 10 million votes,
over 33% of the total, so party time after the party's
highest ever score.
Marine Le Pen had almost banished her father's ghost,
but still not far away enough to make the party electable.
There's talk of ditching the Front National name,
with Marine herself staying on to ring the changes.
TRANSLATION: I propose beginning
a profound transformation of our movement in order to become
the new political force that many Frenchmen and women
are hoping for, and which is more necessary than ever
to bring the country back.
Marine Le Pen has considered remarkably quickly, ten minutes
after the polls have closed yet the French have a tendency to try to
stop the changes they have just voted for and if Emmanuel Macron
doesn't sort out the country's huge problems, chiefly and implement at
10%, 25% of the young people, the National Front will be waiting in
the wings.
Waiting for Mr Macron to fail.
Later Le Pen took to the dance floor to celebrate.
12 million voters had abstained or cast blank or spoiled ballots,
so Macron has many more enemies than those who voted for her.
A man in a beret braved the disco music to tell me it was a temporary
defeat in a long war.
Populist nationalists have already lost in Austria and the Netherlands.
But Le Pen's campaign manager insists patriotism
is bound to be contagious.
After Trump and Brexit, no marine Le Pen.
For Mall.
The question is not if, it is when.
Because as you know, this system that against the
election tonight has been defeated in other countries.
The United States and also the United Kingdom,
every country is evolving at its own rhythm.
Though one analyst told me this morning that Le Pen's TV debate
performance had left the party far more downbeat than it appeared.
I would say right now the Front National is trying to recover from
the massive disappointment.
Marine Le Pen flunked it.
She could have been above 40%.
She was incredibly nonprofessional in the debate.
She read the country wrong in many ways.
She was aggressive.
People came out of this thinking, that woman cannot
rule.
So now she is saying we have to reorganise the party with all the
new voters.
What she means is, I want to hang onto power.
Yet in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont,
where unemployment is high, Le Pen scored a personal
best, 61% of the vote.
And her party will now fight to become the new opposition.
First of all we have the parliamentary elections, where we
could, by having big numbers of MPs, we could also take care of what's
going on in the country...
And be the opposition?
Yes, and tried to protect France from this outrageous
programme.
Judging from this crowd, the Front National's
transformation is under way.
Controlled immigration and a referendum on EU membership
are of course not a million miles from the politics across
the English Channel.
And if President Macron stumbles, the party's blue
rose may bloom again.
That's enough about Marine Le Pen, let's talk about the man of the mum
and Emmanuel Macron.
He himself has said his task is immense.
Izzy up to it?
The task is immense, 577 MPs in the French parliament and he doesn't
have a single one.
He's just announced today the name of his
party.
It was En Marche, as a movement, moving forward, now it is
La République En Marche.
He has to persuade moderate MPs from the right
and left to join him in a moderate happy family.
At the same time sifting through 40,000 applications
from the public to take up the other seats.
A month.
For a parliamentary election in one month.
It's an enormous task because you are asking
the left and right who have already been routed to be like turkeys
voting for Christmas, completely destroy their parties and join him.
And even if they do may try to subvert him when he starts moving.
Once you look at things like reform of labour laws, those sort of
things, the French do what they have done in the past, they vote for
change and then they do all they can to stop at!
If Emmanuel Macron doesn't do things like reform labour
laws, the honeymoon with Angela Merkel will be short lived and his
idea of having helped from the rest of the Eurozone will be short lived
as well.
We will be back for those elections.