A few days after Labour leader Keir Starmer was elected British prime minister on July 4 with a landslide victory, ending 14 years of Conservative-led rule, a coalition of left-wing parties came out on top in the French legislative elections. It was a good week for the left in this corner of Europe.

In this episode, we’ve brought together an expert from each country to help analyse the results and what they tell us about the right in French and British politics. Featuring Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of London and Safia Dahani, post-doctoral researcher in sociology at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

We're running a listener survey to hear what you think about the podcast. It should take just a few minutes of your time and we’d really appreciate your thoughts. You can fill it in here.

This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive editor. Full credits available here. Subscribe to a free daily newsletter from The Conversation. To support what we do, please consider donating to The Conversation.

• French elections: ‘Power will shift from the presidential palace to the National Assembly and the Senate’
• « La légitimation de l’extrême droite est autant le fait d’autres partis que de l’espace médiatique »
• Starmer must seize the chance to rethink the UK-Europe relationship – here’s how he can do it
• Tory wipeout delivers landslide Labour victory: what the experts say