In this episode, Uzair talks to Gilles Verniers about the recent French parliamentary election results. With many expecting gridlock in Paris, Gilles helps us understand what the results mean and what comes next for the country.

Gilles Verniers is Karl Loewenstein Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Amherst College, and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. He also holds affiliations with the Centre for Advanced Studies of India at UPenn, and the Centre de Sciences Humaines in New Delhi. His research focuses on Indian electoral and party politics, political representation, women and minorities participation in politics and India’s democratic trajectory. He regularly contributes to various Indian media and was based in Delhi from 2005 to 2023. He graduated from Sciences Po, Paris.

You can read his recent pieces on the elections here:

- https://m.thewire.in/article/world/france-election-far-right-marine-le-pen-macron

- https://thewire.in/world/france-dodges-a-bullet-for-now-but-sinks-in-uncertainty

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

2:05 Understanding the differences in the groups

9:30 The normalization of the far-right

20:40 Lack of coalition culture in France

30:05 Personalization of acrimony

33:01 The left’s agenda and its foreign policy

38:20 Reading recommendations

Reading recommendations

- Cas Mudde, The Far Right Today (2019)

- James Shields (2007), The Extreme Right in France: From Pétain to Le Pen