advertising. ♪ anchor: the headlines on al jazeera. ukraine says it expects russia to launch a new offense of its eastern region human atlee -- imminently. eu foreign ministers have been discussing a proposal to earmark $544 million for the delivery of additional weapons to ukraine. the foreign policy chief says there has also been talk of more

sanctions against russia. >> the sanctions we continue discussing about how to implement them to avoid any kind of loopholes. we measure the impact the sanctions are having on the russian economy. and we will continue discussing in order to see what else can be done. nothing is off the table including sanctions on oil and gas. anchor: the un security council has heard that rape has been used as a weapon of war in ukraine. the head of u.n. women is calling for investigations into the allegations of violence against women. charif has been sworn in as pakistan's new prime minister after being elected by the national assembly. his predecessor was removed on saturday. he will lead the government

until next year when general elections are due. the is really army has arrested 14 palestinians in the occupied west and following a series of gun battles. hundreds of people took part in the funeral of a palestinian teenager who died overnight one day after being shot by israeli forces. tensions in the occupied west bank has been rising after a series of attacks killed 14 people in the last three weeks. the french president, emmanuel macron, returned to the campaign trail after coming out on top in the first round of the presidential election. he is looking for extra votes before a runoff against far right challenger, marine le pen. those are the headlines and the news continues here on al jazeera after "inside story." ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ >> yet again, emmanuel macron and marine le pen bullfight for the top job in france. there was no clear winner after the first round. a tight right -- a tight race. can the far right win? what does that mean for france? this is "inside story." ♪ anchor: welcome to the program. president macron is in the north of france already campaigning for a runoff election on april 24. he is on top after the first round of voting took place on sunday. he wants to become the first french president to be reelected in the last 20 years but his

contender is not far behind determined to start her whole -- her own presidency by winning the runoff. polling suggests a much tighter race this time than the first time they faced each other. more than 26% of the population then abstain from casting a ballot on the first round. we have this report from paris. reporter: emmanuel macron only dead one campaign rally but the man who brands himself a centrist did enough to have a chance to be the first incumbent french president in 20 years to win a second term. again though, he will have to beat the far right. >> to all of the french who chose to abstain may be because they are angry faced with persistent inequality, a damaged planet, every day insecurity, i want to convince them in the coming days. reporter: has up on it will

again be marine le pen, the leader of the national rally. its manifesto includes a promise to make it illegal for muslim women wear headscarves in public places. >> your vote depends all over the french territory on the legitimate preponderance of the french culture and language, the customs of our regions and the french way of life and on republican laws and values. reporter: she might pick up pens from another extreme right candidate. the former tv pundit has asked his supporters to back her in the second round. the far left had hoped their candidate would make it to the runoff that he did not quite get enough votes. the french traditional parties continue to hemorrhage support. the conservative republican party saw their share of the vote collapsed to single digits.

the socialists have been all but wiped out, their share of the vote barely registered. the beneficiary of those former conservative and socialist votes seems to be macron. >> we ought to ask of the french voters to support a strong and unified france. >> i believe we have a good record and we have a worked out plan with a vision for the future for the young, our culture and the work -- our country and the workers. reporter: macron promises higher pensions and more staff in health care. to the right, a rise in the retirement age from 60 to up to 65. there will be two weeks of intense campaigning for him in your macron and marine le pen. the losing candidates have urged their supporters not to let marine le pen win so macron could benefit from those votes. but the far right with a combined 33% share of the vote

so and upset cannot be ruled out. bernard smith, "inside story" paris. anchor: with the merging of the right wing into the far right as one of the biggest stories of this election, the parties are more united than those on the left. the far right to on what they say is the necessity for france to reestablish its full sovereignty from the european union. they also want to limit or and immigration. and some of the right ring go at -- right wing go as saying islam is incompatible with the french republic. a house brand -- they have spread to a mainstream political force in france. ♪ let's bring in our guest from

paris. we have jack, a senior right -- a senior researcher. and a senior lecturer and an analyst joins us from the telegraph. a warm welcome to you all. everyone will look at the results and then we will project onto what might happen in the second round. first, the first round results. you have written how marine le pen was almost a write-off three months ago. what happened? >> i also wrote last week that she had made an extraordinary comeback, almost a resurrection. it is very interesting because it is a combination of what she has been trying to do for the last 4-5 years and a situation in which she mechanically looked more "moderate" because of a new

player who is a former columnist and looked and sounded more hard-line than she did. suddenly, the entire effort she has put into rebranding her party and changing the name from national front to national rally , turning down her platform and even giving off personal vibes of her personality as being somebody who was milder, less abrasive, someone who gave smaller rallies than her competitors, did not shy away from admitting mistakes -- all of this built up a constituency that related to her and everyone has been counting more votes into marine le pen. she has a core constituency of

people that voted communist 25 years ago and she won one third of the votes from another candidate. she has a very left-wing social program in terms of benefits and changes. anchor: do you agree with that? what is your overview of how this panned out? >> i agree with what is being said. i think the strategy paid off. she decided early on that she would focus on cost of living and that has been rising in france. as has just been said, she was made even more moderate by --. and i think as well, macron, fermi, had a really bad campaign in the first round. he started very late. he refused to do any debate and

his messaging was terrible. the main take away was you have to work longer. a strategy paid off and there was also some tactical voting from others and from the republican right voters to ensure she is in the second round. so i agree with what has been said but i think we should not underestimate that macron had a bad campaign in my opinion. host: macron had a bad campaign. do you think the first round ended up being tighter then emmanuel macron thought it would? >> i'm sure. i agree with oath speakers that -- i agree with both speakers that macron made a terrible campaign.

especially the reform of the pension that he want -- the pension age that he wants to raise to 65. it is a measure in the polls that displeased many people in france. working to 65. that has upset a lot of people on the left. that is where he has to get some support. that is why many people on the left, especially the far left, are very opposed to macron. there is even a sense of hatred towards him. now, i think he has realized his mistake. at the time he thought he needs to take votes away from another

candidate but now he has fallen under 5% so not many votes to be gained there. if he wants to gain votes in the second round from they have to come from the left so the nature of his campaign will have to change, he will have to campaign more and announce more measures. he has to show to the french people that his program is not just liberal or right-wing but it is a balanced program with measures to help the working classes and the poor and the weak which he started today by going campaigning and hunting around in the far left in the north of france in a town where the majority of people voted for marine le pen. he has to convince them that his policies will be good.

that will be difficult because marine le pen made a speech last night and there was money for everyone. it was a list. it was a catchall. host: jack says that macron has realized his mistake. will it be enough? he himself admits it is not over yet and the pole predictions for the second round are well within the margin of error. it is not out of this world to imagine that marine le pen could win this. >> the cross voting and the people that voted on one side -- i just mentioned the voters voting for marine le pen. on the other site, you have got

other voters voting for macron because they felt their candidate wanted to create a large right-wing party -- in british terms, the tory party would add nigel for example. they think marine le pen is much more rigid and backwards looking. that constituency exists. it is very complicated to calculate the votes on either side. i think emmanuel macron should probably win it but the entire campaign has been painted -- the first round was painted with fear and the other one is painted as people. on the far right, they say macron is the one bringing in foreigners and who is abandoning the sovereignty of france to

europe. and on the others, you have a movement against fascism. it is not going to be a grown-up campaign. where marine le pen is shrewd is she always brings back the situation with the hardships that people are experiencing especially now that inflation is going up. macron suffers from last time. last time he was a new. many people voted for him because he was the new guy, younger and he was a safe populist vote. he still had competencies within the french techno structure and someone that annoyed the other candidates. he has been in office for five years. in his big rally, he talked about homes, doctors, and other

people that are suffering and the immediate reaction of many was -- well, who was president at that time? you were. it is going to be tight and difficult to predict. but i still think like the bookmakers that macron will squeeze through but it will be difficult. host: there is a long-lasting discontent over his personality come he is deemed arrogant. maybe that was on display and that he did not take part in much of the electoral campaign. how do you see it panning out the second round? >> again, i agree, it is going to be much tighter then in 2017. in 2017, he was the new kid on the block and people gave him the benefit of the doubt. now, he has a whole presidency under his belt. he generated a lot of anger and hatred in some quarters and discontentment. it is much easier for marine le

pen to point at, this is what he did. do you want this for another five years? i think it will really come down to -- rate on the left and how many voters will switch. that there was a study this morning suggesting 30% -- this is going to be the crucial point. how high is it going to be on the left and how many voters from the other candidate will switch? i think he might squeeze through but it will not be 66-34 like it was last time. >> the number of abstentions will be key. abstaining is effectively a vote for le pen? >> the far left appealed to the

people saying, do not vote for marine le pen. vote for macron. that has been the case for most of the leaders except for a few. there are a few people that have called for a vote to go to le pen. but even on the left, they said they would vote for macron. some of them will not want to vote for le pen because [indiscernible] we can see in this divided france that macron appeals to the french doing well and marine

le pen appeals to those that find it hard to make ends meet. in a debate, that is when it would be key for macron to show that his program is the one best suited for the interests of the working class people. and in that sense, he has something to back it up because his record is very good especially on unemployment. he has created jobs. and french debt is at the lowest it has been for a long time. the issue was the cost of living and even on that, macron will be able to prove if there is a debate and a debate on television will be crucial whether rain le pen has improved in the field of economics -- host: she really struggled in 2017. as john says -- as jacques

says, that tv debate on the 20th will be a real pivot point. >> last time it really cost her dearly. she appeared to be incompetent in 2017. you would think she would have learned from it and she would be better this time around. it is going to be crucial. macron will have to push her on all of her economic promises. if you look at her program, there is something for everybody. it is great, but how do you finance that? he will ask those questions and marine le pen will have to hope she does better than she did in 2017 because otherwise it would be easy for macron to highlight that she is incompetent and does not have the competence and does not know how to deal with crises

like he had to do during his presidency. the debate is key as well as the abstentions. host: i would like to continue that part of the conversation but we have to move on. i want to talk about the french traditional parties. what does this mean what is happening for french politics? is that it for the traditional parties? t>> what we end up having is one candidate of the great and the good who is emmanuel macron and two bogey persons and that is not good for democracy. you no longer have a position who you disagree with but you think they are honorable people. that is a real problem. macron came five years ago seemingly out of nowhere. he had been in the cabinet for

18 months. he was not a member of the socialist party. when he came in he said, i'm going to do many things at the same time. he started shaving off personalities from the right and the left and he always picked compatible and docile personalities. he gave them jobs and forbade them from having ideas of their own. clones of himself in many ways. and the result was a sort of anemic national politics life which reduced the extent of the debate. that i think is bad for democracy. his nature is that he is a civil servant. he was at the ministry of finance. he graduated most of the top of his class at the government school and he is used to people obeying him and not talking back

to him. host: do you think in a sense that macron by emasculating the traditional parties has empowered his own opposition? >> what is interesting is yes, macron destroyed the socialist party in 2017 and now he has destroyed the -- party. the two parties that have dominated french political life for the last many years are in tatters. macron is in the middle. what you are going to see on the right is a recomposition -- the hard right, le pen, the people who backed her, plus -- voters.

and the hard right party on the right which could gather a percentage of the voters. and this is similar to the british tory party. very nationalist and protectionist and at the same time, against foreigners. it is [indiscernible] host: funny you should say that. we need to get into the parliamentary elections. i'm sorry to interrupt. a president without a majority has no power and we have parliamentary elections coming up in the summer. traditionally, the winning president gets the parliament. do you think this will be a

different ballgame? >> yes, certainly if marine le pen wins. ever since they changed the timing of the parliamentary elections putting them after the presidential election, there is a momentum going in. however, i don't see marine le pen winning an absolute majority. we also know that power attracts and i'm sure she would be able to attract people coming from the traditional right, possibly even people from the left who are sovereignists. but it will be difficult to get a majority. and depending on the majority, she would be able to implement her program or not. we might even end up in a period of cohabitation. if she wins, people might say, we have to ratify this. we might end up with le pen as

president and --. you are right to point to the fact that the parliamentary election is the key election. without a majority, presidents do not have power. if macron wins, i think it is more likely for him to have the majority. maybe not an absolute majority but enough to create a coalition. host: we will closely follow this on al jazeera over the next weeks. that is all we have time for. thank you to my guests. thank you for your time and your perspective. and thank you to you for watching. you can watch the program any time by visiting our website and for further discussion, go to our facebook page. you can also join the conversation on twitter. our handle is at a.j. inside story. for me and the entire team in doha, it is goodbye for now.

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