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00:00:06Good evening everyone, welcome if you're joining us on France 24, you're at the heart of the news, we'll
00:00:10be together until 9 PM Paris time, here are the main headlines for this
00:00:14Sunday, polling stations closing in Germany, 4 million
00:00:17people were called to the polls for two regional elections, in Berlin and in
00:00:21the state of Mecklenburg, Western Pomerania,
00:00:25exit polls expected shortly,
00:00:28starting in Saxony. Two weeks ago, it's the score of the far-right
00:00:32AfD party that will be scrutinized, Chancellor Merkel already
00:00:36weakened, weakened, is now playing for her political
00:00:39survival, we'll join Caroline Dublei in Berlin in a few moments, and
00:00:43then we'll also discuss it with Antoine
00:00:47the means of Mariotti. Second day of Emmanuel
00:00:50Macron's visit to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, French territory located in the North
00:00:54Atlantic, an area coveted by President Donald Trump. Emmanuel Macron
00:00:57will meet today with the Canadian Prime Minister. Mark Carney, no
00:01:01doubt they will send messages to the American president,
00:01:04joint press conference to follow later on our
00:01:07channel. And 43rd edition of the European
00:01:11Heritage Days, some 11 million French people participate every year,
00:01:15an opportunity to discover exceptional sites usually closed to
00:01:18the general public, and among the curiosities this year,
00:01:22a replica of the Jean-Bart, a warship of Louis XIV that enthusiasts
00:01:25have been building for over 20 years in northern France, a report in this
00:01:29edition.
00:01:35who could potentially take over disappears from
00:01:42The polling stations are therefore closed in Berlin and in Mecklenburg
00:01:46Western Pomerania, two regional elections at high risk for Chancellor
00:01:50Fredrik Schmerz, already weakened by the historic victory of
00:01:53the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt two weeks ago, the radical
00:01:57left could also achieve a very good score in the capital.
00:02:00Uh, the first uh exit polls are coming
00:02:04in, the first estimates, we're going to join Caroline
00:02:08Duble right away in front of Berlin City Hall, good evening Caroline,
00:02:11what do the first trends
00:02:13tell us?
00:02:18Well, listen, from where I am in front of Berlin City
00:02:21Hall, uh I've only been able to get one piece of information, that of the
00:02:25CDU's result in Berlin, which would be 20% and which,
00:02:29uh according to my information, would be leading in Berlin, so a lesser
00:02:33disaster than what was expected.
00:02:35Indeed, the stakes were high today in Berlin after the
00:02:39elections in Saxony two weeks ago where the AfD, the far-right
00:02:43party, had made a historic
00:02:46disaster for the breakthrough and the CDU a similarly historic debacle. All
00:02:50score of the eyes in Germany were on and moreover the this regional election in Berlin, but also that of
00:02:54Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where the stakes far exceed
00:02:58regional issues. One thing is
00:03:08a crisis unit, a crisis meeting is planned today at the CDU headquarters,
00:03:12the Chancellor should speak within 5 minutes
00:03:15after the first results. And indeed
00:03:19Caroline, the first figures are starting to reach us, so I'll
00:03:23share them with you for analysis. The AfD
00:03:26would have achieved, I don't know if you can hear me Caroline, 37% in
00:03:30Mecklenburg and 17%
00:03:33in Berlin, a strong surge therefore confirmed
00:03:37according to these exit
00:03:39polls.
00:03:43Yes, indeed, uh and the Chancellor
00:03:46had promised to halve the AfD's score, and here we see again they
00:03:50confirm their surge by doubling their scores in both
00:03:54regions, it's it's enormous. So they won't
00:03:59like be able, they certainly won't be able to form a government, the game of coalitions means
00:04:03that the other parties uh will be able to ally. They have
00:04:06decided on a sanitary cordon that makes them
00:04:09refuse any coalition with the AfD, but this, it
00:04:13confirms indeed their breakthrough in both regions, it's a debacle for the
00:04:16CDU and the Chancellor who is already extremely
00:04:19weakened by these results should speak
00:04:23shortly, he deliberately canceled his trip to New
00:04:26York to be present today in Berlin, which shows how much these
00:04:30regional elections have a national scope.
00:04:34Thank you very much, Caroline, for these initial details,
00:04:37you as these first exit polls,
00:04:41well, these first preliminary results, become
00:04:44clearer. We'll talk about it with you, Antoine Mariotti, good evening, Antoine.
00:04:47Good evening.
00:04:49Uh, so the confirmation that the AfD is making a strong surge not only in
00:04:53Mecklenburg-Vorpommern where uh the far-right
00:04:57is thus credited with approximately 37% of the votes. Whereas in
00:05:00Berlin, 17%.
00:05:02sees widespread discontent, most A score that is, if I'm not mistaken, almost doubled
00:05:05compared to the last election, which was in 2021, almost doubled. So
00:05:09in Berlin, during the last election, there was 9.1% for the
00:05:13AfD, so we had said it would double to around 18, it's a little less, it's 16-17%
00:05:16depending on the first results that are coming in. All of this will
00:05:20obviously be confirmed in the coming minutes, as it's coming in at the same time
00:05:23as we're commenting on it live here on France
00:05:2724. It's still an extreme surge, and as Sophie
00:05:30Duble, our correspondent, just said, he had promised to
00:05:34reduce the impact of the far-right, but ultimately,
00:05:37it has intensified. It's a bit like what we saw in France,
00:05:41remember Emmanuel Macron said, "Well, I'm going to ultimately divide the votes of the far-right,"
00:05:45and we clearly see that today, it is stronger than ever and potentially
00:05:48in a position to reach the Élysée in a few months. And in
00:05:52Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the other region where there were
00:05:55elections today, so in the northeast of Germany,
00:05:58we're not in the capital this time. There was
00:06:0116.7% in 2021, the AfD is rising
00:06:05to 37% and would be,
00:06:09well, we need to see if they are exactly, they were neck and neck, so
00:06:12are they ahead or is it the SPD? And
00:06:16the other question in that region is what is the CDU's score?
00:06:19If the score is at 5% or above, the
00:06:22CDU limits the damage and remains present in the European Parliament, because
00:06:26it's in the regional parliament, pardon me, let's not get carried away, but because
00:06:30you need to have 5% of the votes to be represented, for your party
00:06:34to be represented. If it falls just below, and that's
00:06:38a possibility because the voting intentions gave 6%, 7% with the margin
00:06:42of error, it was really very close. If it falls below, then the CDU
00:06:46the regional political landscape, and that would be a
00:06:50catastrophe for Fred Richmer, who would likely be pushed out, because even internally, we see that it's starting to get
00:06:53stuck. So even if he
00:06:57refuses to resign for now, so we see this podium from which there
00:07:01will be declarations later from the CDU, so the party of the
00:07:04Chancellor, I'm eager to know what he will tell us and what
00:07:08the refined scores that are coming in are.
00:07:14for indeed, for Berlin, it seems that the radical left, Die Linke, is ahead of the
00:07:18party of Chancellor Fredrik Schmerce, so the CDU,
00:07:22this debacle for the CDU, in any case, that's what we can say for
00:07:25sure at this stage. So if the radical
00:07:28left wins in Berlin, it means that the CDU, which held Berlin, which was both
00:07:32mayor and governor of Berlin, it's the same position since it's a state in
00:07:36itself, but it's obviously the important
00:07:38city of Germany, it was
00:07:42held. by the CDU, it was threatened by Die Linke, so the
00:07:45radical left party, so this time it's towards the far left
00:07:49and not towards the far right, it depends on the regions, well, the
00:07:53CDU would therefore lose Berlin, which would obviously be a
00:07:58Chancellor
00:08:03AfD, which is not very far behind the far right, still shows
00:08:07that there is also a general disaster both for the Chancellor and
00:08:11for the politics and traditional parties, I want to say,
00:08:14that we have known in Germany, please stay with
00:08:18us Antoine, we're heading back to Berlin, to
00:08:21rejoin Caroline Duplet, our correspondent.
00:08:25Caroline, do you have any more precise results at this stage?
00:08:29In any case, what is certain, as Antoine Mariotti and I said, is that
00:08:32this is a real debacle for the CDU and for the
00:08:35German Chancellor Friedrich
00:08:38personally,
00:08:42Yes, absolutely. As you said, the CDU will
00:08:45lose the mayoralty and the state of Berlin, and in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
00:08:48there too the results are becoming clearer, it's once
00:08:52again the AfD, so the far- right, that wins the election
00:08:55with 37%, ahead of the outgoing
00:08:59candidate, Minister-President Manuela Schwesig, who was extremely
00:09:02popular and who seemed to have made up ground in recent days,
00:09:06she is at 35%, so 2 points behind, and
00:09:10the CDU is credited with... 5% of the
00:09:13votes, we will still have to wait for more precise counts to
00:09:17know if it will be able to enter parliament or not, it was this fateful
00:09:215% threshold that we were watching very closely, if the CDU were
00:09:24not even represented in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern parliament, it would be an even
00:09:28worse debacle for the Chancellor. We are waiting with impatience for his statements
00:09:31from the CDU headquarters in Berlin. Thank you
00:09:35very much Caroline,
00:09:37uh Antoine, this surge of the AfD, it's therefore the failure of the
00:09:40CDU, but more generally of the traditional parties in Germany, how
00:09:44to explain this surge? Yes, clearly, this figure
00:09:48that Caroline gives us, and not Sophie as I said earlier, I don't know why,
00:09:52of 5% for the CDU, it's really the figure to watch
00:09:56because if it's just below at 4.9 or 4.8, then
00:09:59that's an absolutely catastrophic situation for
00:10:03Fredrik Schmerz. You're right, it's symptomatic of many countries'
00:10:06traditional political parties, I want to say, in Germany,
00:10:09but pretty much everywhere in Europe that
00:10:15often from the far right, the far left, this sort of
00:10:18general fed-up attitude of saying that all these politicians for decades, they haven't
00:10:22managed to improve our living standards. To
00:10:25make our lives better, we see right now, for example, that fuel prices
00:10:29are soaring everywhere with terrible diesel prices, we're talking about a return
00:10:32of the Yellow Vests in France for example, and everything. France is not an island,
00:10:36just like Germany, we see that it affects many countries, in the
00:10:40United Kingdom, for example, the far right of Nigel Farage is also skyrocketing
00:10:44and is extremely threatening, so all of this is something
00:10:47quite continental and not just the United States obviously with Donald
00:10:50Trump, I'm not telling you anything new, we happen to talk about it from time to time
00:10:54on... all our media and especially on France 24, it's also
00:10:58a populist surge of a "throw them out" mentality, I want to
00:11:01tell you, now how will that materialize very
00:11:04concretely for the coalition in Germany, we see
00:11:07Frederick,
00:11:10I'll get there, excuse me, I'm bugging on
00:11:12air, I think they're archive images, there, he's going to
00:11:16speak soon from a crisis meeting, it'll be interesting to see
00:11:19what lessons he takes from
00:11:23this, because if he's under 5%, it's catastrophic, if he's over
00:11:265, he saves face a little, but it's still a resounding
00:11:30failure because when you're at only 5%, while the AfD, the far right, is at
00:11:3437%, so 32%
00:11:37ahead, it's a cataclysmic result nonetheless for the
00:11:41CDU, so he says, "Look, I was elected with a coalition on a
00:11:44reform program, I'm going to see it through, I'm going to continue," while there are increasing
00:11:48calls for him to resign, and especially within
00:11:51his own party, we see CDU party officials
00:11:55who, in recent days and weeks, have let slip names of people
00:12:00from Merkel without blowing up the governing coalition at the national
00:12:04level, so federal, even so, but by
00:12:07replacing him because he's very unpopular, and I'll just give you a figure, it's
00:12:11the Infratest d'imap institute, which has its own polling
00:12:14institute, which said that in recent days, only 13%, 13%,
00:12:18he's been there for 16 months, he doesn't even have 16%, he has 13% of
00:12:22Germans who say they are satisfied with his political action. And according to this
00:12:25institute, these are simply the lowest figures ever recorded
00:12:29for a sitting chancellor. Thank you, Antoine. So that's what we can say
00:12:33at this stage about this double regional election in Germany. So I remind
00:12:36you, the far-right is experiencing a very strong surge,
00:12:40not only in Berlin where it almost doubles its score, but
00:12:44also in the state of Mecklenburg, Western
00:12:47Pomerania, where the AfD would therefore garner
00:12:5037% of the votes according to exit polls. We will of course come back to it
00:12:54as these results become
00:12:57clearer. Second day of Emmanuel
00:13:00Macron's visit to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, a French territory located in the North
00:13:04Atlantic, an area coveted by President Donald Trump. Emmanuel Macron
00:13:08will meet this Sunday with Canadian Prime Minister Marc Carney,
00:13:11a press conference to be followed later on our air,
00:13:15no doubt they will send messages to the American president a few
00:13:18weeks after Donald Trump published on social media a
00:13:22map representing the United States, Canada, Greenland,
00:13:25or Saint-Pierre and Miquelon thus wrapped in the American
00:13:28flag. We're going to listen to Emmanuel Macron on this subject, it was during his
00:13:32arrival on the archipelago last night.
00:13:35It is obvious to us that these territories are French territories
00:13:39attached to France, proud to be French as
00:13:42we are, and territories liberated by
00:13:46Free France, and let's not forget that Christmas
00:13:49Day, so we are attached to it, there is no debate, there
00:13:53is no discussion, so we Here, France is present thanks
00:13:57to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, by Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, here at the heart of the
00:14:00global issues in this region, and
00:14:04this also links us with Canada, and so it will be a way to
00:14:08talk about the future together and to consolidate our relationships in
00:14:11many areas. That's it, and to follow, a joint press
00:14:15conference by Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Marc Carney, from
00:14:19Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, it will be at 6:50 PM Paris
00:14:22time. As I said.
00:14:25Also in the headlines, the 43rd edition of the European Heritage Days,
00:14:28some 11 million French people participate every year,
00:14:31an opportunity to discover exceptional sites usually closed to
00:14:35the general public, and among the curiosities to see this year, a
00:14:39replica of the Jean-Bart, a warship of Louis XIV that enthusiasts
00:14:42have been building for over 20 years in northern France, a report by Jade
00:16:06news, stay with us... we'll be back right away.
00:16:22And now it's time for our show,
00:24:49the
00:28:28France24, France24.com and all your social networks, see
00:28:31you soon.
00:30:06Good evening everyone, welcome if you're joining us on France 24, you're at the heart of the news, we'll
00:30:10be together until 9pm, Paris time, here are the main headlines of this
00:30:13Sunday, polling stations closing in Germany, 4 million
00:30:17people were called to the polls for two regional elections, in Berlin and in
00:30:21the state of Mecklenburg, Western Pomerania,
00:30:24exit polls expected shortly,
00:30:28how has Saxony changed in two weeks, it's the score of the far-right
00:30:31party that will be scrutinized, Chancellor Merkel already
00:30:35weakened, weakened is now fighting for her political
00:30:39survival, we'll join Caroline
00:30:42Dubley in Berlin in a few moments, and we'll also talk about it with Antoine
00:30:45Mariotti.
00:30:48Second day of Emmanuel Macron's visit to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon,
00:30:51French territory located in the North Atlantic, an area coveted by President
00:30:55Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron will meet the Canadian
00:30:59Prime Minister today.