The Duran Podcast - Weidel and Le Pen Look Unstoppable, But The EU Has Tools

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Weidel and Le Pen Look Unstoppable, But The EU Has Tools

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the political situation in France with Le Pen. Elections are coming. Yeah. 2027, right around the quarter, we're going to have big elections in France. And Macron cannot run. And Le Pen does appear to be pulling ahead. We also have some interesting news from Germany. Alice Vidal actually posted about this on X.

that in East Germany, the AEFD is polling at around 43%, about three times as much as the CDUCSU. A huge lead in East Germany. Yeah. And you also want to give everybody your thoughts about your travels through Germany and through Brussels as well. But let's kick things off with France, I guess, Le Pen, and then we can talk about Germany a bit. Yes. Well, as I said, you're absolutely right. I mean, let's start with France, which we haven't discussed very much,

at least the political situation in France for a long time. So if you remember, we had parliamentary elections some time ago. There were deeply manipulated elections. The Macronists and the left did a deal with each other so that we ended up with the situation where Le Pen's party convincingly outvoted everybody, but nonetheless ended up with in third place, in numbers of seats in the French Parliament. And if you also remember, I speculate, you know, you know a little bit about French politics.

Sooner or later, there would be a centrist government established. that the more centrist sections of the left, the Socialist Party, in other words, would distance itself from Jean-Luc Melanchon, who is the leader of the more hardline left, and would support a government that Macron basically wanted. And that is exactly what happened. We have a government in France, a parliamentary prime minister,

who is able to get some kind of, some of his things through the Parliament, and he is a centrist, and he's supported by the socialists. However, the effect of all of that is that it has shattered the left, probably beyond repair. Melanchon still seems to be the most popular figure on the left amongst French voters. He has won over support amongst left-eclined voters, amongst the younger people, and amongst the immigrant community and people of that kind. The centre has not been able so far to put together to find an effective candidate. It is looking increasingly unlikely that they could pull off the same trick that they did

when Macron emerged a decade ago, when they found Macron virtually unknown figure, presented him as a political outsider, got him to unite the centre and the left against Le Pen. That trick has been tried too many times. I think many, many French voters have deep doubts about Marine Le Pen. I think that many people on the right instinctively don't trust her. Many people on the centre don't especially like her either. But at the moment, she seems to be the only person in French politics that is to be taken seriously. And she is far ahead of everyone else in the elections, in the polling in France for the presidency, for the elections to the presidency next year. And the longer this continues, the longer Le Pen remains ahead.

And I think her lead is something like 20% over the, you know, the top candidate, who I believe is Melanchon, by the way. The longer this continues, the more one senses that the view will begin to take hold in France, that a Le Pen election, a Le Pen victory next year, is inevitable. And then inevitably, politics and electoral politics will start to reshape around that. A little bit like what happened in the 50s with de Gaulle. De Gaulle isolated from the mainstream of French politics, basically pushed into a kind of exile in his own small town, then gradually came to be seen that his return to power was inevitable. and in the end he became a kind of unstoppable force. I am not suggesting that Marine Le Pen is an individual of the same caliber or weight of personality as de Gaulle was.

All I am saying is eventually what looks inevitable in politics tends to happen. And this is especially true in France. She is capable of making mistakes. She's made mistakes in the past. They have resulted in her suffering political defeats and losing elections, which she might have won. But she's now an extremely experienced politician. I think she's probably got a better team around her than she used to have.

So for the moment at least, she is. She looks very strong and it's difficult to see how she can lose. That's all I'm going to say. And that's all I'm saying. And it's today. Maybe in three months' time, it will be different. Yeah, things can change, absolutely. Absolutely.

And Ursula has tools and she will use those tools. So where would you place Le Pen with regards to the, to the globalists, would you say she's more Orban or more Maloney? Maloney being full globalist and Orban being, let's say, anti-globalist. Would you place somewhere in the middle or? I think she's slightly more towards the Orban side, but without having any of the brilliance that Orban did one time undoubtedly have. She doesn't have his force of personality.

and his extraordinary edition, by the way, which many people don't want to talk about, which Orban does have. That is not what Le Pen has. So she doesn't have that level of, you know, political weight and that kind of coherence in her thinking. And of course, I'm talking about Le Pen as the political force. Le Pen, the politician,

is somebody who has weaved and ducked and changed her position many, many times. But the forces that are supporting her, working class France, increasingly older voters, and this is, by the way, an important change because older voters in France tended to be the most particularly antagonistic to her. but they're now starting to swing back behind her. Anyway, the electoral coalition that is building is going to push her in a certain direction, which is, I think, closer to that of Orban than to Maloney's.

And on foreign policy, I think definitely, there is always been a view in France that France got too close to the Americans, too close. close to the British, under Macron, under Sarcasie, under Hollande, by the way, is thinking of standing again, just to say. I don't quite, you know, seems a bizarre idea, but he is. So I think there is always this current in France, that people do think this, that it's time for France to reassert itself, to show again that it is a force to be reckoned with in Europe. And within France, there is also a lot more skepticism, open skepticism about Project Ukraine, about the

conflict with Russia than there has been in some of the other countries in Europe, in Britain, in the United States, and within Maloney's group. Maloney's political strength is that she had, she has a party in Italy. which she dominates, Le Pen doesn't dominate her movement to the same extent. And they are in a position to make demands on her, which Maloney's party is not in a position

to make of Maloney. So by the way, as to Maloney and Le Pen, they dislike each other intensely. So it's most unlikely that they're going to form any kind of, you know, United Front or anything of that sort. that's a good positive sign for the fact that she doesn't like maloney i would say

yeah yeah yeah anyway she she tried to reach out to maloney it was maloney who basically slammed the door in her face and apparently le pen uh um you know has not forgotten or forgiven that so maloney never got on with mackron but um it's likely that if we do get a president lepen she and Maloney will absolutely not get on at all. I mean, there is now genuine dislike between the two. The Greek word, misos, perhaps gouches it best. Well, Maloney threw Orban under the bus as well. Absolutely. She betrayed Orban as well. She went full Ursula, Maloney. So anyway, all right, let's talk about Alice Vidal and the eye of death.

Yes, well, I've just... Are they the real deal? They're at 42%? in Eastern Germany. I think they are. I mean, I think this is the other thing to say. I mean, if we're talking, if we're comparing Le Pen with anyone, I mean, let's compare her with Alice Vidal. Alice Vidal is far more talented political leader and a far, far more, I think, intellectually, forceful figure than Le Pen is. And yes, I mean, the IFTA is sweeping the board in Eastern Germany. which has always been, by the way, it's, you know, major heartland. And we, it's increasingly looking as if they're going to have a very strong result

in Saxon-unhaled in Saxony, in the London that's had the London election that's coming shortly. And they're probably going to come first. I mean, they will come first, I'm sure, in Mecklenburg for Pormand, which is also in Eastern Germany as well. So yes, the IFDA is getting stronger, but I've just been to Germany and I just wanted to pass on my impressions. Firstly, I was both in small town Germany and city, big city, Germany. In the small towns, still life continues as much as it did, the deepening economic crisis, has not caught up there.

So in those places where I went to, you know, life continues to some extent as it did before. But that doesn't mean that people aren't aware of the politics and that the politics isn't changing. In the cities, and I went to one particular city, which was mines, which I know best, is a city I visited many, many times. I saw obvious signs of economic distress. I saw rough sleepers in the main square. That is something you never used to see in Germany. I mean, 10 years ago in Germany, you didn't see it.

20 years ago, it would have been unthinkable, inconceivable. You saw obvious signs of, you know, businesses shut down, lots and lots of accumulating. accumulated problems. Now, this is, of course, Western Germany. But the other thing that struck me from the conversations I had is that, firstly, there doesn't seem to be the hostility to the Yaiifte that I once remembered. I mean, in this part of Western Germany too. So people perhaps are becoming more receptive. The other thing is attitudes to free mouths, the Chancellor. And right across the board,

it isn't that he is disliked. It's actually worse than that. I mean, he is seen as an almost risable figure as a complete joke. Some person, again, I won't want to say who, said to me that he lives inside a bubble. And I'm sure this person, by the way, their background is in the CDU.

This person, I should say, he was a CEO of a company. No one had a remotely good word to say about him amongst the people I spoke to. I mean, he was seen almost as a clownish figure. So put all of that together. the IFDA did come across to me as far and away the strongest party in Germany at this time. And again, I don't want to suggest that its rise in success is inevitable or anything like that.

But certainly the SPD and the CDU do not look like they're in good shape to resist it, to oppose it. All right. Do you want to mention anything about the... Yeah, I'd like to say a few further things. I mean, again, let me talk about... Let me also talk... I mean, the Greens do remain a political force in Germany. And there are parties to the left, which I think are rising, especially DeLinka,

and I suspect that they're going to get stronger in Western Germany, not in Eastern Germany, where DeLinka originated. So, you know, politics in... Germany is not straightforward and I said that the IFDA maybe is not as unpopular as it was with some people in Western Germany, but there's no doubt still a lot of opposition to it. The other place I visited was Brussels and I spent two days in Brussels and it was a shattering experience. Firstly, central Brussels, which is where I was, is going down fast. I mentioned rough sleepers in mines.

I mean, Brussels, you multiplied that by 100 or even 1,000. It is beginning to look like a poor, gristingly collapsing, what we used to call a third world city. I mean, the parks, the central places, massively in Elkap, refuse anywhere, everywhere, places where I saw raw sewage. I'm absolutely not exaggerating. The metro, and actually the horrifying place to visit. And right at the center of it all, you have the European Union and it's structures. And the European Union has a gigantic banner now that they've put on their main building, the Barlemont building. From top to bottom, it goes all the way from the very top of the building, right to the bottom.

And it is enormous. If you go on to, if you look for pictures of it, you will find it. It's democracy. what we've protect. How it's completely Orwellian. And the other thing that's going on is that they're doing an enormous amount of construction

around this building and around all the other buildings where the European Union is located. And by the way, all of these buildings are hideous. I mean, they're modernist. There's some modernist horrors. But they're rebuilding all of the places around it. And what they're doing, and I know a little bit about this kind of thing, is that they're changing the architecture of the streets and squares around them to prevent big protests from happening. So, you know, they're reconfiguring squares.

So, you know, they're putting so-called ornaments and other things. They're creating new road systems. but the purpose is to prevent processes. So you have these fortress-like buildings, which are truly hideous, this huge banner, democracy. What we protect, what they're really protecting, of course, is themselves, even as the whole town around them is sinking to a degree that, as I said, is astonished me.

Brussels for people to know. is a place I used to go to very, very often. It used to be a lovely place. Those who used to read, you know, who used to read Ere and Tintin and all the graphic novels, the Brussels I remember from the 1970s. We're still that place. It is not like that anymore today. It seems very representative.

What's happening in Brussels with the EU there, creating this fortune. As everything falls apart, it just seems very representative of the wider situation in the EU. Don't the leaders, the politicians of Belgium, the politicians in Brussels, DeVos, all these people, don't they care? No, they don't. They see what you see. Doesn't it bother them that this is happening? Well, I think they live in a bubble. An increasingly fortified bubble.

I mean, on top of everything else, I mean, bear in mind, they're heavily protected, and they're taking steps to protect themselves even more. Also, I think they have a deep contempt for the people around them. I don't think they have any particular love for the people of Brussels. This I always remember, by the way. I mean, I used to go to the commission. Actually, I used to visit the commission in the 90s. And even at that time, the commission really didn't think very much. much, the people who worked there, were very detached from the life of Belgium and of Brussels

altogether. I think that has grown to absolutely horrific dimensions. I should add something else. This is something that I was told by somebody who's worked for the commission, by the way, that all of this construction that I'm talking about, you know, the rearrangement of the squares and all of this, which apparently never finishes. I mean, this is the other thing that's going on, that there is an enormous amount of corruption involved in it too. So it's not just, you know, the grift of Project Ukraine. There are other microgrifts happening alongside it. So, I mean, there's all that as well.

So, you know, I don't think they're too bothered. What I just wanted to say is this. I have been to two European capitals or two capitals in Europe over the last few months. One was Moscow, which is geographically in Europe, and the other was Brussels. And you could argue that in a way what is happening at the moment in Europe is a duel between these two capitals. Moscow, a gleaming, super modern, utterly sparkling, clean, enormously efficient metropolis. Brussels as a degenerating into this horrible slum. Well, anybody who didn't know anything else but just went to these two places, one after the other, would have no doubt at all which of these two cities was winning.

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