ah, ah, ah ah, this is debbie news live from berlin victory for emmanuel marconi in the 1st round of frances presidential election. the centrist leader fights off a strong challenge from the fall rights marine la pen, but it's not over yet. both contenders go on through a 2nd round in 2 weeks time. ah,

i mind bluecross welcome to the program. we begin, of course in france where president emmanuel macklin has emerge as the clear winner of the 1st round of the presidential election. their initial projections give macro 28 percent of the vote and his far right challenge are you can see it there on the screen. marine la pen with 23 percent. both of them will now go on to a 2nd round or run off on april 24th. there are 10 other candidates from different parts of the political spectrum. they are out of the race crone as micron has won the 1st round by a bigger margin than expected. he beat off a strong challenge from the pen who dramatically narrowed the president's lead in opinion polls in the last few weeks. owing. go right over to my con headquarters in paris with our correspondent barbara vale barber. you are there? what are supporters of my con, saying, thinking, doing, acting right now. a joyful and

waving level of french and european flag because of course, as we know among the problem has always flawed at the european union and said that we all countries in europe need to stick together and stay together. and there's a huge sigh of relief because the latest holds during the last week. it made it look tighter and tighter and they even seen the danger that the marine, the pen might, are packed. and monro micron. know this hasn't happened, the 5 percent difference in this 1st round isn't big enough for him to gain momentum for the 2nd round. and what is really important at this point is that others who have been defeated are sort of giving their endorsements to mock wrong. valerie progressive, the conservative candidate who was horribly defeated that no could to sort of bring

her party back into the main political arena. but she stepped up and she said, now all my votes around, all, not quite 5 percent should go to a manual. mike from the green edge, i don't, he stepped up and said the offer was around 5 percent. it's the only chance for ecology and for climate is band with them on with my problem. so please though crib and the most interesting endorsement, we heard from far less firebrand john luther me long shaw who carried around 20 percent. his election is best selection in the years and he talked about that the fight was the life and that now everyone had to go out and block the far right. he didn't say go and vote for much wrong. he could manage to quite to do that. but he repeated several time, not a single goal for the far right. quite clear admonishment to his supporters now

don't go and do something stupid in under these circumstances mock wrong than is the best choice. so a circling of the wagons effect against marine le pen. what does mccall need to do in this next phase of the election campaign going into the runoff election that he didn't do in the 1st part going into today? yeah, he really needs to step down from his throne. he really needs to go out and go, go and get dirty, shake hands and market places go out into a small, a french provincial town and not reside here in paris. various majority is relatively certain. anyway, he needs to go out and show the french people that he can listen to them, that he is on their side, that their problems are his problems and talk about talk about much more about his

rod, the good record from the 1st round on economic affairs he is really achieved quite a number of things, but it's something that hasn't really resonated with vote as much. and he just simply needs to sell that more. and he just needs to go out and be more human. be less what the french all was, think arrogant amount of a, from a microns biggest problem, is that he is like the kid in school who is absolutely the smartest, the most brilliant in class. but nobody really likes him at all. and somehow he has 2 weeks to sort of do something against that image and that reputation. and basically he has the talent. if he sets his hard to it, he might just be able to do it. there is always an issue that nobody likes the know at all in class. that may be true. we're. we're seeing in 2022 very similar pictures to what we saw in 2017 the last presidential election between a manual mock on an marine and other lessons to learn from the previous the

previous election between those 2 candidates and what might happen now if mike wrong really comes out fighting, he probably can turn things his way. but the one point does need to do is a difficult thing also because he needs to court though does from the traditional conservative side of the country. and at the same time now with the, the sort of more that's endorsement from john mcmillan shaw the hard left, the guy he needs to cord to the left. and so that is going to be of robert a difficult balance and he needs to sort of talk about their issues and sort of give them some president. makes them promises in that direction as well as not do anything to sort of push away conservative voters. but that is the difficult position. he's straddling anyway, he has this middle of the road he's trying to middle of the road position in french

politics, as people call him a liberal. but he's neither really conservative nor really laughed at. but he meets those 2 camps. now at the moment to win his 2nd round, and he is smart enough to understand that he needs to do with that. and he just has 2 weeks to manage. and probably he can make it barbara days a were gonna leave you there for now. we are expecting a manual mark on himself to be speaking since will be coming back to you shortly. so stand by in the meantime. let's turn over to le pen headquarters where our, the so louis is standing by. lisa, what is the room like where you are? well, people who read here, i'm really happy bought the result. might use them earlier. piece of information saying that and magna, i'm really pen might be not connecting this 1st round of voting. that has turned out to be not true and yet to be locked into of the process has told me, you know,

we're really happy. we think we can, when i talked to one local representative of the past and she said from tomorrow i would get the older people in our a team. and we would go and try to make campaign every day of these coming, 2 weeks convinced that haven't been covering the pen, especially those from the right to vote for us tend to rally or close to the 2nd run, run off in 2 weeks time. how did the pen managed to succeed as well as she did? she did quite well compared to where she's been following the last several weeks. absolutely, unexpectedly. so really, you know, for months on end polls were predicting that maryland and back off would be in the lead. and this election would have a large lead before in front of a marine le pen and, and all that time that she really did the leg work. and she,

the campaign through france, she went to see people in small towns and cities at market telling them, you know, i'm really says to you, i'm going to help you make ends meet addressing at the french age. his main concern, really that's spending power. she said that to lock the prices up, essentially, she can control fuel prices nevertheless, that for a long time that didn't help for a climb up in the post at what happened then was that another call right candidate the, you know, adding them more and he entered the campaign and he was, he seemed even further to the right that and marine the pen. he with painting with slated into that were out. right? said, all right. then a fall, they keep promise that crack down on muslim to crack down on crime hand bronze and all that. you know that a very direct extreme isn't actually had marine depend in

a lot is none of us. so the light really and so she benefited from that in the long run, although eligible for the for core part. but then she climbed up on the poles again . and then what happened was the one you cry, the 1st of all that trigger. so co flag effect, people run, rallied around delita around him on the back call, defending them in times of crisis. but that effect quite quickly waned off because in one of my call stayed away from the campaign train the end of the campaign. very late today i just candidates the at the very last minute in a few meetings. some that gave the impression to a lot of french vegas that he was disconnected from their reality and mean monitoring the pen. she continued to, you know, to go and see people on the ground. and that had the fact that, you know, she climbed up in the folds again, my call went down in the polls and people in from lot it's kind of crisis boring. you train back. she has been traditionally,

always been quite place to letting me put in the russian president at that she received funding from russian bangs for this campaign until the last campaign. and so all that was forgotten. it was also forgotten that actually when you look at her program that marina penn is actually. 6 quite a bit and many people now feel that, you know, she looks like a self confident hi lisa lewis, thanks very much. that analysis. we're gonna leave you there and probably be coming back to with much more while we're waiting for a manual mccall himself to speak. we might have someone even better for the time being my d. w colleague emmanuel shows here with me in the studio to give us the bigger picture. we're watching this election here in germany. how does this election look to german politicians? well, i think everybody in germany is looking that is a lot of interest because or should the presidency in france change? should it go into the hands of mine or been we would see quite

a difference. a relation between the 2 countries. there's really a difference between a euro file, emanuel mccoy and a euro, skeptic, martin le pans. so there's a lot of interest here from berlin on the outcome of this election. and i would go as far as saying that days of relief dots, emmanuel mccomb came 1st during that 1st round. so from here we look at things like the e u. we look at things like nato and ukraine is huge, huge issues. these are probably not the issues that french voters are looking at, which is maybe why i'm a krohn. mccullen struggled a little bit. how are things seen differently in france? and we might see them here. well, and you have to look at the personality of the 2 main candidates, him and her macro, e's a quite popular abode when you see him giving speeches on europe. for example, he's a speech of the sa bone in 2017. and he was acclaimed all around the world for it when you saw him dealing with the church presidency in the us. he was

a steel managing to talk to donald trump, where and many other leaders didn't have that accessed to don't know term. for example, angle america had a very difficult relation with was donald trump. so he's seen as a, one of the leaders of a, you know, up to weston allies if you will. and of course, if mine the pen came to power a will be quite different. because for example, a before the ukraine war, she was advertising her friendship with vladimir putin quite a lot to show that she important on the international stages where but she doesn't have a manual micro stager when it come to this international stage. but she has made her step over the years quite popular in france. she's proven, you know, more likable and new or near the people that are in my call is that it was, was saying that she has soften her image while a minute wondering, 5 years. harden this image, he hard, he showed in quite an attainable, you know,

these painful towards the people. and that's probably the served him a little bit to this. this campaign and a campaign was really short due to the war in ukrainian manner. in my studies campaign. very late, while my independence was compounding for months already. let's take a quick look at the far right aspect here because there's a far right presence here in germany, that the far right presence in france. is that a reason for concern? looking from here to france, while we'll send that over the years, the far right in france has, has surged, us really increased. and of course, we see the same phenomenon here in gemini, but to a lesser extent, if you look at the results, the a, if the might have 38, the might be in the german parliament, haven't to, might have entered the gym and parliament for the 1st time since will to in 2017. nevertheless, this, we're talking about 12 to 15 percent, whereas in france,

one french and out of full would be happy to have the far right president. so i think things in france are bits for wearing done. there are 2 states in germany, but if you look at the source of the popularity for both parties, both are have actually close links to russia. here. both policies also can, you know, have had issues of having to justify their campaign phones because those kind of in france where coming partly from russia, we see a tendency, the rise of pop. it is in europe being financed by what we can now call and funding nations. we're going to leave it there with you. we will see you later while we're waiting for my call to come out and speak. but let's turn it over to our colleague jack power actually standing by for us in brussels with the european perspective. jack, you've been watching this election. people in brussels been watching this election?

what's their reaction? well, i think that the overwhelming reaction here in brussels will be that they are pleased to see this result. they're not going to say that officially, none of the institutions are going to say that. but micron has, you know, consistently being throughout his political career, a pro, you figure a marine, the pen has been and to you, it's important to say she has in recent years. so the tone down her conversations against the european union and focused on other issues like immigration domestically. but it is well known that she sat in the european parliament for many years. and, you know, spies very anti e you views. and while they might know of the electorate so much in france with that message, that people are aware that that's, that's sort of what would happen if a phillip em presidency came to pass from a brussels perspective. this election has been broadly overshadowed, obviously by the war in ukraine. and the accusations of depends, a ties with russia. obviously, a concern from that from because the european union is trying to push as hard as

possible, you know, on these issues and trying to stand up against that invasion in ukraine. and what they see is, you know, the russian aggression as part of the invasion williams. so i think the allies will now be on the 2nd round. but another aspect to this, i think is, well, that's interesting is broadly what we're seeing off to the invasion of ukraine is that incumbents in elections in europe are tending to do pretty well. we saw it with the hungarian prime minister victor oberon last weekend. also, the serbian president took a pretty sweeping victory. not only you country, but the invasion of ukraine appears to be favoring incumbents when it comes to elections. and we're seeing this in this 1st round of the french elections as well . and one major aspect of my cons, personality you can say is strengthening western institutions, the european union, and nato. for sure, if he goes on to be reelected and serve a 2nd term, what kind of changes might we see at that level of european and western

institutions that mccall maybe started in his 1st term? yeah it's, it's hard to say what will happen on the security front because the, the issues there are so fluid at the moment. and the situation in ukraine is obviously such a hot conflict that i think a lot of those decisions as a sort of still moving pause. but one thing that micron will certainly try to do if he is to be re elected. in the 2nd mind, we now know he will face off against marina pan is to build on what he managed. in the 1st off the back of the pandemic, he managed to persuade mainly the germans, but also some of those other frugal countries, like the netherlands that lead that sort of frugal for countries of countries that didn't really want further financial, fiscal integration in the european union he managed to persuade them all around to allow the european commission to go on to the international market use. it's aaa rating to raise money, to fund the recovery from the pandemic. at that time, it was 750000000000 euros with inflation. it saturates. it's going up

a little bit since then that was seen as a huge win for the french president. he had said regularly that he would like a sort of euro zone finance minister, an exclusive finance minister that works for the single currency. and i think those, those are the kinds of things, especially in the sort of economic and financial sectors that he is going to see if he is re, if he is re elected. after the 2nd mind, he will continue to try and push on those sort of things, jap, park, they're brussels for us. thanks very much for the latest there. now turning to of course, the other big story that is the war in ukraine. russia and ukraine have agreed on humanitarian corridors to evacuate thousands of civilians. eastern areas are bracing for, they fear will be a new russian offensive. satellite images show a convoy of hundreds of military vehicles heading for the eastern don. this region, the areas around the capital key ver, russian forces have retreated. war and more civilian casualties are coming to light

. ah, a father's body recovered a daughter's inconsolable grief. and then a 2nd body is found. emergency crews and booths of a have gone from searching for survivors to recovering the dead. rushing forces have reduced this village, just north of ukraine's capital to rubble. officials have uncovered the bodies of hundreds of civilians in towns outside keith, where the russian army has recently retreated and the northern region churned a heave. almost all is lost. north america, both good. we have a folding that here. this is how we survive the war. nothing is left of natalia teeth of his family home. the pensioner now depends

on humanitarian aid. to remove her boy lived here for such a long time. over 30 years, our house was bombed. all of our things, all over the ukrainian lives had been lost or completely up ended. it was given the actions of the russian soldiers and ukraine are barbaric though. just barbaric robbers. still, russia has fail to take any major cities, said fitz invasion on the 24th of february. the west has shown solidarity for by leveling unprecedented sanctions against russia and donating financial aid and weapons. but president bolo, damira, zalinski, is begging allies for a total ban on russian energy products to reduce the kremlin war chest, and to save his people from more bloodshed. it's got some other developments

regarding the war. the airport in april, ukraine's 4th biggest city has been badly damaged by russian missile attacks. according to the local governor, to columns of smoke could be seen around the airport. a grave containing least 2 civilians has been uncovered in for sofa, a village near keith. it's the latest burial site identified since russian forces withdrew from the area to concentrate on eastern ukraine. austrian chancellor, karl namor, is to meet the russian leader vladimir putin in moscow. will be the 1st european leader to do so. since the invasion of ukraine, the hammer has been in keys where he offered humanitarian aid and political support . pope frances called for an easter ceasefire and ukraine in his 1st full palm sunday mass. since the start of the pandemic. hotel,

50000 catholic faithful. that an armistice would pay the way for peace, for negotiation. against the backdrop of the war in ukraine, germany is marching the anniversary of the liberation of the boot involved concentration camp at the end of world war 2, holocaust survivors and jewish leaders gathered to remember nazi crimes that were committed there during the holocaust american forces liberated the camp in april 1945 representatives of russia and valor is for asked not to attend the memorial after a russian attack and ukraine killed a holocaust survivor. our political correspondent, thomas barrow filed this report from the camp. the atmosphere is always heavy, always difficult in full manase concentration comes like this. one my gluten by 280000 people from all over europe was sent here by the nazis 56000 people were killed. and the atmosphere to date is even more difficult. because

events here had woven by have been overshadowed by the wool in ukraine. camp survivors have condemned the russian invasion of ukraine, and in fact, russian government officials were uninvited to ceremonies here in book invite on. this also has to do with the death of bodies romance, jenko, 96 year old. he survived full concentration camps including foreign vide, but was killed in the ukrainian city of hockey in march. therefore, it is particularly important that participants here to day it book and abide, renewed. a pledge for a world in peace and freedom. the current leader, a manual marconas, emerged as the winner of the french 1st round of the french presidential election. initial projections put micron at 20 percent of the vote. as main challenger the far rights marine le pen trails with 23 percent. both contenders will go

forward into the 2nd round in 2 weeks. now there of course were 10 other candidates from parties all across the french political spectrum. they are now out of the race . and we can go back over to paris square. barbara. hazel is standing by for us at mclean party headquarters, where the incumbent is said to be coming to the stage any moment. now barbara, maybe you can tell them, tell us about the crowd. it probably waiting with great anticipation for, for their man to come out in the stage. i wish i had just seen his scythe, motorcade racing along the say. now you might be just a few minutes from here from the course of his side convention hall, where he is meeting his supporters and new way. he will speak to them and of course to the nation because he is still president of the company to about prong by

motorcycle outriders, said that they were really sort of pushing it because i think now he finally fields certain enough about he is the strong leader in this 1st round, and the numbers and the figures might be reliable enough, right at the moment that he now dare is on the basis of that to speak to is supporting his party and french voters. in general, of course, we will have 2 more weeks now off campaigning task campaigning. he really needs to set up and put the bandages on and really needs to go out there and show that he couldn't connect with friends voters. and as we have seen him in the past, he will be doing that. and it advisors and his support is, will help him on the way, particularly with the strong social media campaign. for instance, that they have started putting out old quotes from marine la,

penn from the last round of the 2017 elections, which he was talking about. her closeness to donald trump and to have like the mid booting and saying sentences like here, policies, the policies of trump and the policies of who did are my policies, and that is what i want to support. so they will not allow voters to forget what her stance was and maybe is towards russia, even though she has sort of mellowed her tone and her whole demeanor considerably as throughout the last months. and of course, we will have another highlight, as we headed during the last elections in 2017 off the debate of the 2 contenders between emanuel murph wrong and marine le pen. she has had a lot of time to work on her to work on howard sort of restoration

because the last time in monmouth mac wrong just wiped the floor, was hers. she was so noticeably bad that voters were just flocking to mac wrong and drove thinking that she was just completely incompetent. so she will have learned if she will have take lessons or was people telling her how to answer difficult and tough questions. but my problem is incredibly smart, that is his big strengths and he's very quick on his feet in a debate. so we'll see how that goes. it's going to be very interesting. if she comes out not being quite as bad as last time, then people might think, okay. and she has learned some and, and she may be a better person these days. but we will see how that will go. he just has to be careful not to come over as too arrogant. that is his biggest problem really. well, you mentioned his arrogance. and you mentioned the motorcade that, that is on its way,

which we saw some live pictures of. and i believe are showing those live pictures behind you make them look very presidential. but that doesn't seem to have been enough to really give them the support that he might have liked. what. what else does mccall need to get across to french voters besides presidential image that he's very good at showing? he has them plenty of recognition far from the present presidential image. i mean more than 70 percent of french people say yes, he looks like a president. he eggs like present and we think we could rely on him in a big crisis. the problem is that different from, for instance, germany or poland or other european countries like sweden and finland, everyone who is closer to russia. the wine ukraine here in fries wasn't a big initial shock, but it has sort of completely faded. and what really leads in the polls about the main concerns of voters, is the buying power is, is their salaries is inflation,

is prices and the price of energy. and everything else has completely taking a 2nd step back in relation to that. and this is sort of taking a back seat. now, what he needs to do mac wrong is relate to that. he needs to speak to people and tell them i'm your president. i hear you, i see what your problems are. and even though i in the kronk saying that this war in ukraine and the, what russia does, there is a putting, putting a european security under under strain. it said the most important political development and the most stressful political development in the last decade. if the french don't feel it, he can sell it to them. so he has to come down to the level of yes, we will need to talk about your salaries. we need to talk about inflation. we need

to talk about the energy prices. i need, i as president need to talk about.