You're listening to Comedy Central. For decades now, France has been one of the few countries in Europe you didn't have to worry about, right, They didn't make Nazis, they didn't go bankrupt, they didn't hire a web teletubby as their prime minister. But this weekend, this coming weekend, as the French people get up for a national election, everyone is wondering if this is the moment when France goes
off the deep end. A rematch runoff in the battle for the most powerful politician in France current President Emmanuel McCrone and far right candidate Marine Lapins. The two will face off on April as a repeat of their two thousand seventeen election. This is the far right leaders third and final attempt at the French presidency, and if you go by the polls, she's never got as close as this.
With the very latest polls suggesting more support for Marine Lapin, more people are asking whether France is on the verge of its own Brexit moments or Trump moments. There's a possibility of a French Trump. Jesus, if you thought Donald Trump was Herni horny before, I don't think the world is ready for what this election could bring. Can you imagine that, my fellow bellegians. Then Mona Lisa s but she needs to smell more. If I win, We're gonna
make Mona Lisa smell again. So much smelling smelling. But yeah, France's current president's Emmanuel mccron is going up against far right candidates Marine le Pin right in an election that is happening this Sunday. And yesterday they sat down for their first and only debate of the campaign, and throughout the night you could tell that these two do not
get along. French President Emmanuel mccrowns barring with his far right rival Marine Leapin in a fiery, high stakes TV debate last night, two politicians who clearly don't like or respect each other. The long route went on, the worst the atmosphere. I find it so hard to follow you as you have made so many false accusations. Stop mixing things up. Do not give me a lesson. I'm not giving you a lesson. Do not give me a lesson
on how to finance my plan. You know, I know this fight was considered intense by French media, but by American standards, that was pretty true. Everyone stayed in their seats, no one screaming. If anything, it looked less like a debate and more like a stressed couple arguing at a restaurant. You know. It was like, no, Brian, I told you my parents gave me that money. I don't want to spend it on crypto. I told you, babe, it's not crypto, it's an n f G. I was the difference. What's
the difference? Oh? That was missing from that debate was that moment you know, when you're having done an you're fighting as a couple, and then the waiter comes over and makes it super awkward. That's that's all this mystic was just the weights are coming in in the middle of that whole fight, you know, just being like, okay, everybody, so um the specials of the day are. Oh, I feel like I walked into something here, did I I'm feeling a little tension. Did he? Did he say something
to you? Is that? Is that what it is? Yeah? You know what I feel like, you guys need to work something out. I'll come back. I'll give you some time. I'll be back in about ten seconds. Okay, okay, bye bye bye. Not the stakes for this debates were probably the highest that France has ever seen because this election
has gotten a lot closer than people expected. You see, when these two faced off in mccron beat Lapin by but with only a few days left in this election, recent polls have showed Lapin within single digits, right, So she's not leading in the polls, but remember neither was Donald Trump in Yeah, my point is, hopefully mcrown visits whatever France's Wisconsin is. And there's a number of reasons. There's a number of reasons that the pen is catching
up to mcrown. Right. The country has experienced a refugee crisis, there's obviously been a pandemic, and of course there's rising inflation, which is why a lot of French voters are angry at mccron and saying things like this. In fact that if that everyone talks about the taxes, the taxes, the taxes. This woman said, we have no spending power. We just work and buy groceries to eat, We go out to
restaurants less, we do less. Otherwise it's really tough. At the end of the month, I think Frances collapsing from the inside. You know, every time you think pre stereotypes are exaggerated, you see something like that. Because No, because using your cuisine to comment on the dire state of your politics, that's the most French thing you could do. You don't have a country is collapsing from the inside. No, because think about I've never seen people in any other
country make a metaphor like that on the news. Not once have I seen someone being interviewed in the streets of Nigeria being like, our problems run deeper than the flavors. That's not a thing, it's not a fig. But of course elections are about choices. A lot of French people are thrilled with mccron's presidency, but they'll still take him compared to the person that he's running against, the notorious Marine le pan Because you see, she has a long
history of being Islamophobic, of being xenophobic, agoraphobic. Basically, she doesn't like a lot of ship, is what I'm saying. And on top of that, the people that she does like tell you a lot about the type of leader that she would be. Lapin is a NATO skeptic. She wants to leave the EU and has modeled her campaign on President Trump. Lapin has a history of CosIng up to President Putin, even putting a picture of them together in one of her campaign pamphlets. The policies I represent
are the policies represented by Mr Trump. They're represented by Mr Putin at a that take didn't age well, and she likes Putin, I mean to be fair to her. They asked her about Putin in twenties seventeen, and back then Putin was just undermining elections and poisoning people. It was still too soon to tell. She was like, I'm on the fence. You never know, but you see its views like these that led to Lepen getting crushed when she ran in seventeen. But here's what's dangerous about her.
Just like a terminator, she gets smarter with each sequel. Yeah, no, you see, after the last election, she started to rebrand as a kind of gentler racist, you know. Yeah, may I take you back to where you came from? And the way she did that, she did not abandoning her extremist views. No, she just doesn't mention them as much anymore. It's basically like when you do a zoom meeting and then you point the camera at that one clean corner of your apartments. Do you know what I mean? Now?
All of the sudden, things seem under control, but you've still got a family of raccoons eating leftover Chinese food on your couch. It's still the same world. And Lapan hasn't stopped at just moderating her words. No, she's trying to revamp her image to cultivate a more cuddly version of herself. Marine Lapan has wrapped herself in nice words and her cats. She's become a cat breeder. Everybody loves that. This kitten is so beautiful, that her name is her majesty,
so endurable. That's how you know Lapin had the worst possible image before, because her pr people were like, you know, it will make you more relatable, becoming a cat lady, it's going to help. So that's where France stands headed into the election this Sunday, Moderate incumbents with weak approval numbers, hoping to hold off a xenophobic Putin ally who's coming back for one lost shot at the presidency. And you know, that's what I love about French politics. It's just so
different from the USA. Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven tenth Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount. Plus this has been a Comedy Central podcast.