There's a big NATO summit in Washington, DC this week. I know these big gatherings happen all the time, but this one is extra notable. For one thing, the Alliance is marking its 75th anniversary. And as always, there's a lot of pressing issues Russia's war in Ukraine, countering China's influence, etc. but the timing is really notable because of the domestic political situation playing out in some of these countries.

If you take a look at what Trump did in Ukraine, he said, this guy told Ukraine, he told Trump, do whatever you want and do whatever you want. And that's exactly what Trump did to encourage it. Do whatever you want. And he went in.

'After the CNN presidential debate, multiple foreign diplomats described to CNN how hard President Biden's performance was to watch. Well, Biden is scheduled to give a solo news conference at the summit as he continues to resist growing calls for him to drop out of the race. Meanwhile, in Europe, a wave of populism and anti-immigrant sentiment fueled big wins by far right parties in European Parliament elections last month. And as we post this, voters are going back to the polls in France, and what happens there could reverberate well beyond Europe. My guest today is CNN senior producer Saskya Vandoorne, who's based in Paris. We're going to talk about the 28 year old face of the far right, and how he could soon become French President Emmanuel Macron's biggest headache from CNN, this is One Thing I'm David Rind.

So, Saskya, voters are heading back to the polls this weekend in France. Can you remind us how we got here?

Yeah. Well, David, you kind of have to cast your mind back to the European elections, which were, a month ago. And that kind of seems crazy, considering how much has happened since then.

Welcome, everyone. Far right parties are projected to win a record number of seats in the European Parliament, after four days of voting wrapped up on Sunday.

Basically, the far right did really well in those EU parliamentary elections, particularly France.

Protesters took to the streets in Paris, outraged at gains for right wing parties in France. French President Emmanuel Macron, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, dissolve parliament and called snap elections after his party.

And I think because of that, you know, Macron said he had no choice but to call snap elections. And that's what kind of caught everyone by surprise, even his prime minister. And everyone was asking, you know, why did he do it? And I think you've got to remember that, you know, this is a man who, on the night he won the presidency in 2017, walked out to ode to Joy, Europe's anthem. So I think he felt he couldn't really ignore these results. He's such a staunch European, but everybody was shocked because at the timing of it, it seemed a bit mad to call the elections right before the Olympics right. And it gave all the parties such a little time to campaign. But I think that's what Macron was planning to use to his advantage.

So he basically saw this EU parliamentary election results where the far right did really well. And he basically said, you guys don't really feel like that, do you?

Yeah, exactly. I think he thought that the French might vote differently in an election that implicates them directly.

A political earthquake is happening in France. The far right National Rally, formerly the National Front, is closer to power than ever before.

But of course, you know that that that gamble did not pay off. And so, you know, as you said, not only did he take a beating in the EU elections, but he then took a second beating in the first round last Sunday. You know, the far right came out on top. The left wing alliance was second. And of course, you know, Macron's party and its allies came in third.

He's going to have to rule. He's a president for the next three years. He's going to have to stay in office and have a parliament that basically is of the opposite party.

'Back home has kept repeating he's he's vowed that he's going to see out the remainder of his term. And that runs until, you know, 2027. But traditionally, the president offers the premiership to the party with the largest share of seats in the National Assembly. And so he now faces the prospect of having to appoint a prime minister from an opposition party, because, you know, his party did so badly, in that first round. And so that's why this week we've seen that so much political maneuvering, because an unprecedented number of candidates did go through to that second round from the three blocks that I've been talking about. So the National Rally, far-Right, the left Wing Alliance and Macron's camp. And so to try to avoid splitting the vote and in an effort to kind of block the far right from getting, an absolute majority, which is 289 seats, hundreds of candidates from the left wing alliance and Macron's camp decided to, you know, drop out to try and dent the far right, chances of of getting a majority. And it seems to have to have worked in terms of, you know, getting that majority for the out of the far right's reach. But, you know, I guess the big question now is what happens if the far right have a minority government and there are lots of scenarios that we can kind of look at, but do you think that's an important one to to focus on because the National Rally leader, rather than it, you know, he's only 28 years old, making me feel quite old. He said same. He said that he would he would refuse to govern if he doesn't have a majority in Parliament, because he says you wouldn't be able to enact the changes he desperately wants. But so in this scenario.

So you could just see like a bunch of gridlock in Parliament.

Exactly. It could be total paralysis.

Well. So tell me about this National Rally party. This is the far right party. Jordan Bardella, who you mentioned is kind of the young figurehead of this group. What should we know about them and why so many French voters seem to be willing to vote for them?

Yeah. Well, it's naturally it's really a mix of kind of identity politics and I'd say populist economics. I mean, they want to reduce immigration. They want to end free medical assistance for undocumented people. They want to end the right to French citizenship. And that's automatically given to those born to foreign parents on French soil. They've also talked about reducing tax on energy bills. But they have rowed back on Frexit, for example. They no longer want to tax it.

Is that like Brexit?

Yes it is exactly. They no longer want to take France out of the European Union. Now they say they just want to do a lot of negotiating to be able to, you know, bring the sovereignty back to France, but that they have dropped that idea of frexit. And I think what's important to know about the National Rally is, is, you know, we touched upon him is Israel and Barbara is the new face of this party. And, you know, this is a guy he's he's big on TikTok. Young people love him. He used to be a a bit of a gamer, when he was younger. And he kind of has virtually no experience. So there's been a lot of talk about the relationship between Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, if he is elected, you know, if he is prime minister, if he is appointed by Macron to be the next prime minister, what will that relationship look like between now and a potential in LA? Is she the one who's really calling the shots. And you know, we need to also, I think speak about how what Marine Le Pen you know, has done, in order to get to this point where this party has, you know, almost been normalized, right? She's she's brought it into the mainstream.

'No mean feat for a woman who inherited the party from her father, the Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Rally, or National Front, as it was known, with former French members of Hitler's SS.

You know, she she essentially committed patricide by turfing her father out, who was the leader of the party to try and detoxify it.

The key also for the National Rally, the young who voted massively in favor of a party that few in the past would have admitted voting for.

So in a way, you know, she's kind of already won because she will have done something historic. You know, the far right. If it's the biggest party in Parliament on Sunday, that will be the first time since World War Two that this has happened. And David, we we interviewed Marine Le Pen last night. Christiane Amanpour interviewed her. And one of the things that I noticed when we walked in was that there were crates of champagne, everywhere.

Oh, they're getting ready for the celebration.

They're getting ready for the celebration. But, what Le Pen had to say to Christiane, was also pretty interesting. She laid into France's national treasure, football, Kylian Mbappe, because, Christiane asked mine to pen, you know, what she thought of of in his comments where he said he didn't want to represent a country that didn't represent his values.

I think that now more than ever, we have to go out and vote. There's an emergency. We can't let our country in the hands of these people. It's really urgent. I think that we've seen the results. It's catastrophic. We really hope that it will change and that everyone will mobilize to vote and to make the right choice.

And Le Pen answered that in BAP doesn't represent the French people. That French people are sick of being given moral lectures, especially by millionaires, and that these people, such as Mbappé, are lucky that they are shielded from poverty. You've had other, celebrities who have come out, and I Nakamura, very popular, you know, singer here who has also urged the French to vote against the extremes.

It just kind of shows how the stakes have been driven up, because that's like the equivalent of like Taylor Swift or Beyonce and LeBron James basically saying, hey, Americans don't vote for Donald Trump and the Republicans no matter what. Like it's that kind of star level.

It is kind of that star level. And people here are super interested in what I'm happy, you know, keep saying that because you didn't just speak once. You then, was asked about it again and you double down on sake.

We know that we are in a very important moment in the history of our country, an unprecedented situation

Again, repeating that he, you know, did not want to represent a country that does not represent his values.

'So you mentioned that the far right did well across all of Europe in the EU parliamentary elections. Is this an anti-incumbency thing? Like are people just tired of the status quo, or is there something deeper going on here across Europe that the world should be paying attention to?

Yeah, I think in apart from the UK, which is the outlier here, right. A lot of Europe has swung to the far right. And I think mass migration has a big part to play. They call it, you know, energy politics. But people want change. We've seen that with, you know, Germany's AfD party. You've got Giorgia meloni in Italy. And now, of course, the far right here. And I think everybody has their, their eyes, you know, firmly on the US election because a Trump victory would, would only really embolden, you know, the populists across the EU to seek more power and, and influence. Really.

The Ukrainians say that they've been managing to stabilize the front line in many areas. However, there's one particular area in the Donetsk region called are where the Russians have said that they have made some gains towards a very key town.

In her interview with Christiane Amanpour. Marine Le Pen also touched on Ukraine. She said that Jordan Bardella, as prime minister, would prevent Ukraine from using French supplied long range weapons to strike inside Russia. And that is significant, especially because, you know, Macron has been so ambitious in what he wants to do, in terms of ramping up that aid, especially militarily. You know, he has said that he wanted to send troops there to train up the Ukrainian soldiers. And Le Pen also responded to that by saying, well, if if Macron wants to send troops and Bardella doesn't, then Jordan Bardella as prime minister would get the last word. So that again shows us the kind of division, the problems we're going to have between who has the final say, what is constitutional. And these are all questions that analysts are poring over as we speak. It's that uncharted territory that I was talking about, this leap into, into the unknown that I think will just be more of a headache next week.

Like we've seen so many times with this war in Ukraine. What goes on in these domestic halls of power really has a big impact on the battlefield weeks and months down the road. We'll see what happens. Saskia. Thank you.

Thank you so much, David. Au revoire.

One Thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producer is Faiz Jamil. Our supervising producer is Greg Peppers. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director. And Steve Lickteig, is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Caroline Patterson, Dan Wright, and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Wednesday with another episode. Remember, if you like the show, leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen. And be sure to hit the follow button so you get a new episode right away. I'll talk to you later.