The Duran Podcast - Elections France, Germany, Italy. Center collapse

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Elections France, Germany, Italy. Center collapse

All right, Alexander, let's talk about some election developments in Europe. We had elections in France, we had an election in Germany, and we also had this judicial referendum that took place in Italy, for which Maloney lost. Which election do you want to start out with? Well, I think we should start with the local elections in France, the regional elections in France. Now, I mean, I used to know France very well, and I used to know about the politics in France. And there has always been in France a significant division between the way politics are conducted at the national level and way politics is conducted at the regional level.

So if you're talking about what happens in the regions, the departments, as they're called in France, and is the cities, incumbency. in France is a very, very powerful factor. So if you have a town where you have a socialist mayor, more likely than not, in any regional election, unless there is an absolute overwhelming tidal wave, that mayor is going to be reelected. And politicians at regional levels also tend to. to be very distinct, despite whatever label they carry, from elections at the center, at the national level.

So I think this is what people need to be aware of because there's been a fair amount of talk about how the socialists held on in some places like Marseille, for example, which, by the way, historically, once upon a time, was a rock-solid left-wing city. It hasn't been that for a fair amount of time now. But anyway, the Socialists held on in Marseille and Eduard-Philippe of the Republicans held on in Le Avre. Well, as I say, incumbency works very much to the advantage of whoever standing there, as it did in Paris, where the socialist was also re-elected. If you look below the surface, what you see is the continued collapse of Macron's party, which is clearly fading out and a continued advance by Jean-Luc Melanchon's left and

Marion's right. That is the underlying continuing story of these local elections. In recent months, there's been an attempt to try to turn on Melanchon, who, by the way, is somebody who you can say all sorts of things, all sorts of very critical things about, you can say that about anybody in France. But, you know, especially Melancho. Melanchon has a complicated backstory and, shall we say, unorthodox views. But anyway, there's been a big attempt to push back strongly again.

him. And there were some at hopes, expectations that his left-wing grouping would include, it didn't. It not only stood its ground, it seems in several places to have continued its advance. And across France, national rally, Le Pen's party continues its advance too. What it points to is another presidential election next year in which you're going to have a strong right-wing candidate, probably Joseph Badella, Marine Le Pen's number two, rather than Marine Le Pen herself.

And you're going to have Melanchon. And the centre, which is weakening and shrinking, is going to try to consolidate around Edward Philippe, who is at the centre right, and we're going to see every conceivable manipulation and device used to try to get him through, and it might succeed, but it's proving it's going to be much more difficult than it was in the two elections, presidential elections, that Macron won. So we see the left and the right still strong, not just still strong, still gaining strength, the centre still shrinking, despite the attempts by the centre to play the left and the right

off against each other and to weaken them. So that's the story in France. An ungovernable country, I mean, Macron no longer makes any real attempt to govern France. He's entirely focused, as far as I can see, on foreign policy. If Edward Philippe becomes president, he's a more, I should say, conventional figure, the Macron, he might gain some traction for a short time. But the days when the centre can govern France are ending the days when the centre can prevent anyone else, be the right or the left, from governing France. Unfortunately, someone may say fortunately, but they're still with us. We might still have an inconclusive, let's just say an inconclusive, another election next year that fails to resolve France's ever-deepening political crisis.

There's no side that's in a better position to take over for, say, the Macaron Center, if you want to call it that, neither Le Pen or the left or Melanchom. you don't see any one of them in a better position going forward? Unless there is a major breakout, and by the way, if that does happen, it's more likely, I think, to be the right than the left. Le Pen and Bardell are breaking through. But my sense is that the legal case against Le Pen has actually weakened the right more than they want to admit. and without Le Pen acting as the focus, the leader and the person who's going to run in the election, they may have lost some focus, even though, as I said, they're still continuing to gain ground.

As for Melanchon, I think it's going to be a very, very tough call to get people in France to vote for Melanchon. I've said this many times. France is a fundamentally conservative country with an... enormous left. But the country overall remains basically conservative. Getting enough people to vote for somebody as radical and outspoken and, well, as unorthodox, as Melancho is going to be extremely difficult. At least that was the case in the France, I used to know. So what Melanchon is doing, and I said this many times, is contrary to what many think, he is a force that is preserving the status quo because he is enabling this as a shrinking center

to argue that there is no real convincing alternative to itself. So it wins by default and by manipulation. But there's no conviction or energy behind it. And as we've seen over the last five years with Macron, four years with Macron, well, longer than that than Macron. I mean, these people can't really govern France and they can't address its underlying problems. We have administration in place of government. we have a slow, steady movement towards what is going to be a major structural crisis. Okay, Germany?

Germany is. Yeah, now here is more interesting. You're talking about structural crises. Yes, here it is more interesting. Now, we've had a local election in Rheinlampals. Now, Rheinln-Falz is the part of Germany, I should say, that I know best. I've had long, long connections and engagement with this region. And this goes well before the time when I got to know my wife, whose German family actually is there.

I mean, it's a chance that they are from there. But I've known Ryan Lundfels very well for a very, very long time. And by the way, just to say, for those who are interested, It's where the most famous Rhine regions in Germany are located, the Rhineland and all of that. So anyway, since the 90s, this has been a rock-solid SBD social democratic area. It's not always been that. There have been long periods where the CDU has been the dominant party. for a long period during the 70s and 80s,

none other than Helmut Kohl was the Minister President of Heinlein Fals. So there are right-wing CDU-leading areas and there are left-wing SPD-leaning areas. But the dominant party in recent decades, since the 90s, has been the SPD, since in fact, 1991. And this was, if you like, another part of the heartland of the former West Germany,

with the alternation between CDU and SPD, but each governing for very, very long periods. The story in Rheinemphalz, another complete collapse of the SPD. The SPD is now in this area where it was. was so strong, is imploding. And a doubling in the vote for the IFD, which is increasingly becoming the party of opposition. It's come from nowhere, and it polled 18%, which, again, you know Ryan Lundfals, you would know how incredibly extraordinary that is. So because the SPD has collapsed, the CDU with around 30% of the vote, low by its historic levels in this state, by the way, is now the biggest party and will probably form the government, the local government.

It will do so with the SPD because there is no alternative. The CDU is very afraid of the IFD, but the story across Germany now is of a seemingly irresistible march by the IFD. And I'm going to say something else. Apparently, this election is creating an internal crisis within the SPD. There is, again, talk of, there already demands that the SPD ministers in the government, Mautz's government, should step down. This is coming from within the SPD. There is increasing talk that, apparently within the SPD, that staying in coalition,

with Mouths for the SPD is a disaster, just as staying in coalition with Merkel was a disaster, that the SPD needs to distance itself from Mautz and pull out of the coalition. These words are now being said for the first time, if it is to survive at all. If that happens, Mouts loses his majority in the Bundestag, and there will have to be elections. So we are perhaps closer to a political electoral breakthrough in Germany than appeared to be the case even a few months ago. I used to think that the big breakthrough in European politics was going to happen in France. It's starting to seem it's more likely if it's going to happen anywhere that it's going to be in Germany. because the Ayefde has shown again in this election that it is able to expand its electorate into Western Germany, places which would never have voted for it once, where you would not have expected to see people voting for it.

And that is causing growing strains within the coalition, the current coalition. And it's starting to be something that people are talking about that the coalition will collapse. Which is why you have these reports about AEFDE and leaks to Russia and all of these creeping up again, all of these reports from the EU creeping up again. Of course, of course. They're starting to get worried about Afti. Yes. I mean, absolutely.

To say clearly, I mean, if the coalition collapses and we have elections, I, I, I think that any SBD person who thinks that's going to improve the position of the SPD is completely wrong. I think we're going to see the SPD vote collapse, which is, by the way, why I don't think there's going to be elections soon. I think the SPD will hold on to the coalition, the old guard, the old leadership, who worked before with Merkel and who backed Olauels and who now back, you know, the coalition with Mouts. They have been almost constantly in government now for decades, which is, I mean,

completely eviscerated the personality of this party. But, I mean, they're not going to give up, give that up. They want the ministerial positions for as long as they can. They want the positions in Berlin, which obviously come with all kinds of material benefits, which we can skip. But I can't imagine these people who are, I think, sufficiently in control of the SPD, agreeing to a pull-out from the coalition. But the demands to do that are growing, to the extent that the SPD still has grassroots, they are becoming stronger. It may be that, as I said, the tensions will increase to the level that that does eventually

happen. Anyway, you're absolutely correct. The IFTA, because it is able to increase its reach in the way that it is doing, expanding to Western Germany is coming up for the usual rhetoric that it's all, you know, involved in Russia, the stooges of Putin, all of that nonsense. We're probably going to see a lot more of that over the next few weeks and months and for all I know years. Okay. Maloney, Italy.

She looks vulnerable. She lost her referendum, this judicial referendum. Yes. And she may not be as powerful as many people thought she was. Yes. I think that Maloney has deceived many people. I think, first of all, she deceived a lot of people into thinking that she was more radical as the leader of what was supposed to be Italy's far right than she actually was.

So she became prime minister. She was for a long time popular. I mean, there were many things that she was doing that, you know, people, I mean, people liked her. I mean, she was, you know, different. And she was somebody who was well grounded in family and all of those things. So she had a lot of goodwill behind her and she was able to capitalize on it. And also, she had the advantage that she took. over as Prime Minister at a time when both the left was profoundly discredited in Italy and the

economy was going through a kind of minor upswing. So for a ton things looked more stable in Italy and her overall position appeared to be more stable and stronger than it actually was. In fact, she proved to be a prime minister of the status quo. Her politics differed internally, in my opinion, very different, very little from those of previous Italian governments. She became, the government, the coalition itself started to fracture and she became much, she became graduate. You could sense over the last six months, year or so, that her support base was slipping. So what did she do? There's this judicial reform. The opposition pushes for this referendum. The referendum happens. Maloney loses. And I can't help but think that this is going to

be the moment when, as I said, political mortality strikes her. And we're going to see her position start to fall away. Now, she has within the coalition, again, the man who I think is the real leader of the Italian right. And I still believe this. I think Matteo Salvini is ultimately a much more interesting politician than Maloney is. And the two have never really got on. There's always been tension. And I would not be surprised if seeing Maloney weaken, Selvini now starts to become more outspoken again, and if we start to see Selvini rice as Maloney dims. So overall, if you look at this all together, if you look at all of these elections that we see, in France and Germany, we're continuing to see a swing towards the right.

In Italy, you could talk about perhaps success for the left, but I still don't get the sense of the left. are anywhere close to breaking through, but always everywhere, support for the establishment continues to decline. And in Germany, there is no more establishment party than the SPD, just a simple. Yeah, and if Salvini does rise, we're going to also see the Russia stuff from the EU against Salviy as well. That's the go-to, is Russia. He'll probably be the most aggressive in pushing back against it.

And he's probably the person who's going to say, look, I'm doing, you know, obviously, I'm fine with the Russians. You've got problems with the Russians. I get. And Italy is different from Germany and perhaps even to some extent France in that the sort of pitch that Salvini is going to make, which is going to have some traction. If you go to Italy, that there isn't the same hostility to. Russia in Italy that you find in all sorts of other places.

So it might actually, it might not work against Salvini in the way that it's say causes problems in Germany for the IFTA. Yeah, very true. All right, we will end the video there, the durand.locos.com. We're on X, a rumble and telegram. We're also on substack. So check us out there and go to the Durand shop, pick up some merch. Link is in the description box down below.

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