is not in line with our ethics. leave aside the morality issue here. there's also a practicality issue when it comes to immigration. giorgia meloni, who is a right—wing leader in italy — who in some ways is comparable in some parts of policy to your national rally in france — she has had to accept reality on immigration. she came pledging to massively cut immigration, to end illegal immigration. she hasn't ended illegal immigration. and not only that, she's now accepted that italy needs for its economy around 800,000 immigrants per year. isn't the truth that france too needs immigrants? your party just won't accept it. well, first, i have to clarify that our political line is that if a european member state decides that it needs legal migration for economic reasons,

every member state is free to decide on its own. and this is our political line. what we don't want, that the european commission decides on behalf of member states. and this is exactly what's going to happen... but with respect, france hasjust signed a migration pact alongside all the other members of the eu. that's signed and sealed. it's too late for you to stop that. yeah. but what is extremely interesting is that two days after this pact on asylum and migration was adopted, 15 member states sent a letter. so, ministers, 15 ministers sent a letter to the european commission asking, in fact, to focus now on combating illegal migration upstream, so before

migrants arrive in europe, and especially with the proposal that the people in need of international protection, so let's say refugees or asylum—seekers, should be allowed to lodge an asylum application in consulates abroad. so meaning, and this is exactly what my political party proposes, that people in need of international protection should be allowed to go to consulates of european union member states, and there, they would lodge an application. this would be much safer for them. they would not be the victims of criminals and traffickers. and then if their application is considered as well—founded, then they would be transported decently in a dignified way to europe instead of being the victim of traffickers and then being brought to europe illegally by ngos. mr leggeri, we've talked a lot about immigration, but there's many other planks to the national rally offer

to the french public. quickly, i need to go through a few of them. let's talk about the economy. you've got all sorts of ambitious proposals to put to the french people. you say you're going to roll back macron�*s change to the pension retirement age. you're going to roll it back to 62. you're going to slash vat on fuel and energy to help french households. you're going to cut payroll taxes, you're going to do all sorts of things. the montaigne institute says it's going to cost around 100 billion euros a year. that is money that france doesn't have. and the leading french economist 0livier blanchard recently said, "the national rally programme "is fiscally irresponsible. "gifts cost money," he says, "and the money simply isn't there." you're going to crash the economy. no, the current situation is the crash. but this is the legacy from president macron. can you imagine that france has now more than three thousand billion euro debts?

and one third of that was accumulated in the recent years under president macron... but you're going to make it worse, mr leggeri, much worse. no, we are not... we are not going to make it worse, because we have... first, we need an assessment of the situation, because we need an audit. and we are not sure that this is all transparent, what is the real situation. so first, before starting really to revise all the policies, we want to conduct an audit. and based on that assessment, we will see what is financially possible, sustainable and what is not. ah! so maybe some of these promises you've made, you won't keep. but that's an interesting point on economics. let's talk international affairs before we finish. i recently spoke tojean—noel barrot, the europe minister in macron�*s government, mr attal�*s government. he said this. he said jordan bardella —

that is your party president — he didn't vote for sanctions against russia, he didn't vote for resolutions denouncing the detention and assassination of alexei navalny, he didn't vote for the military support for ukraine, he didn't vote for the support of ukrainian refugees. all of this in the european parliament. that is the record of your party leader. are you still basically a pro—putin, pro—russia party? this is again political bashing by macron�*s government. but we are very clear on ukraine. we are very clear on the fact that russia attacked ukraine and that we in the national rally, we want ukraine to be able to defend itself against the russian aggression, we want... with respect, i'vejust heard mr bardella say that he would not be giving ukraine missiles, long—range rockets. yeah, but we don't want to escalate the conflict. we want ukraine to be able to resist and to show up in the peace

conference in a very good shape, from a military perspective, so that we can then avoid escalating the war, but we can, at the international level, make sure that ukraine arrives in good shape and can really negotiate a peace and would not be obliged to accept conditions which are not acceptable from a ukrainian perspective. 0k... see, i reckon a lot of people around the world are trying to work out what a france led by a national assembly government that is national rally, what it would mean for europe and for the world. just a couple of things i've noted. one, the national rally says it will end the idea of franco—german cooperation at the heart of eu policy—making. it seems you've no interest in working with the scholz government in germany. but also when it comes to the us election in november,

mr bardella said recently, "my heart leans towards donald trump," so that's the kind of france we can expect, is it? well, first of all, france wants to remain... we want to remain members of the european union. we want to remain in the eurozone. we want to remain but improve the schengen free movement area. we are members of the north atlantic alliance, and we want to be members of the alliance. we don't want to change now the integrated command, because there is a war... well, you do. you do. mr bardella has said that as soon as the ukraine war is over, he still wants to take france out of the integrated command structure of nato. that tells us something. this is what de gaulle did in 1966. then we came back. for the time being, let's see first how the situation can be solved regarding the security of ukraine, but we will be trustful allies

in nato and in the european union. we don't want to change this. and in a word, because we are out of time, but this is important — if you do not win an outright majority, will you work with other parties in a coalition government or not? well, jordan bardella will only accept being prime minister if he can rely on an absolute majority in the national assembly. we have, of course, representatives who are members of the rassemblement national, national rally. we have an alliance now with the les republicains. so this political party seems to be split. but we will rely on those members of the parliament, the french parliament. but we need an absolute majority. otherwise it's impossible

forjordan bardella to really be active and to really act. and this is what we want. we know that french people want that the country is properly managed. and for that, we need an absolute majority. mr leggeri, we have to end there. thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk from paris. thank you. thank you very much. hello there. wednesday was the warmest day of the year so far, with 31 celsius reached in wisley in surrey. but that's the last of these sorts of temperatures for now. it does look like for the rest of the week, into the weekend,

it's going to be turning fresher for all areas and the winds will be picking up as well. but we'll still have quite a bit of sunshine around. now, the change is all courtesy of this area of low pressure, pretty deep for the time of year, pushing to the north and the west of the country, where it'll bring significant winds and some rain. but the cold front associated with it will spread across the country, pushing the warm and humid air back out to the near continent. this is the cold front — barely anything on it as it reaches southern and eastern england. but it will bring a change to the air temperature. plenty of sunshine here, but windy with showers or long spells of rain for north—west england, north wales, northern ireland and into scotland. so temperatures here much lower than of late. highs of 2a to 25 degrees across the south—east. but warmer along north sea coasts, as we've lost the onshore breeze. but it will be a very blustery end to the day for thursday. gales across the far west of scotland, far north of northern ireland, showers or longer spells of rain, whereas i think as we head through thursday nights across much of england and wales, it should be largely dry with some clear spells. lighter winds the further south that you are. but it will be a cooler

night to come for all, with temperatures 10 to around 12 degrees. so as we head into friday, then, we see that area of low pressure pulling away from the north of the uk, but it will take its time. it stays quite windy, blustery, with outbreaks of rain across scotland, whereas for england and wales, closer to a ridge of high pressure. so the further north that you are, it will be windier with showers or longer spells of rain. the further south that you are, variable cloud, but some good spells of sunshine. and i think for many, it will stay dry on friday. temperatures perhaps reaching around 23, maybe 2a degrees. otherwise, it's the mid to high teens further north, so you can see that cooler trend is continuing. into the start of the weekend, bit of a question mark on it, but it looks like this area of weather fronts will bring thicker cloud and outbreaks of rain to the central slice of the uk through the day. to the north of it, it stays quite blustery with sunshine and showers, feeling cool. but some good sunny spells across the south and south—east could put temperatures up to around 25 celsius, so feeling quite warm again, but cooler further north.

but as we head into part two of the weekend, it does look like it'll be cloudy with some further spots of rain and feeling cooler for all.