France: Far right leader Marine Le Pen gains popularity amid nationwide riots

The French Prime Minister met with union leaders earlier today. It comes as France braces for more protests after the Yellow Vest movement called on demonstrators to take to the streets on Saturday. Sébastien Lecornu has vowed a massive police deployment. It comes as his government admits law enforcement officers lost control this past weekend after protests turned ugly and resulted in scenes of violence and looting. Here's what the head of the CGT union had to say after that three-hour-long meeting. It is catastrophic. We came to get concrete, immediate answers to the social anger. The Prime Minister and the government announced not a single measure, not a single consideration for our demands. The demands of workers we have brought here to the Prime Minister's office are simple and well-known. They are those of the student unions, the end of Parcoursup, the admissions platform, more funding for universities and high schools. And then for workers, our demands are for means to combat the cost-of-living crisis. We can now bring in our international affairs editor, Rochelle Ferguson-Bouyahi. Rochelle, you listened to those unions who spoke after that meeting with the Prime Minister, and it seems like the government is going to face more pressure from the streets, given that they didn't have solutions on hand to present to the unions. Well, we listened in to Sophie Binet there. It's worth saying that the other unions who came out after her and expressed their feeling were very much echoing what Sophie Binet there saying, that there were, in fact, no measures, no concrete measures in any sense were being offered to deal with, you know, some of the issues here in France, notably the fact that people are really struggling with purchasing power, with the cost of living being particularly high. I've been there talking about the fact that, you know, people, when they get to the middle of the month, are unable to get to the end of the month because simply they're overdrawn. They don't have the money. She spoke about this being a budget of recession, because, of course, the issue of the budget here has been huge with the cost. Absolutely. With France being really, you know, struggling with its deficit here, being a cash strapped government. We've referred to it as a number of times. She used the word catastrophic on several occasions when she spoke there. And the idea is that, yes, you know, to come to your come back to your question, the pressure really is mounting because of this thin line between hearing the demands of French people, hearing the demands of those 500,000 plus people who are out in the streets protesting peacefully at the weekend. And then at the same time, being firm against those who were clearly, you know, taking part in mob attacks, attacking, you know, buildings, whether it was a town hall in Limoges, finding that fine line between being firm, but also having their ear to the ground to listen to the French people. Now, the government is promising a massive security deployment in the wake of that unrest which we saw last weekend. We have Marine Le Pen who effectively is saying that more needs to be done to secure this country in light of those scenes of violence and looting which we saw. She just has to sit on her hands and let this play out, right? I absolutely mean the polls are coming in around Marine Le Pen suggests that she is by far ahead of in the polls and that her only real contender would be the hard left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. But it's worth saying she was already ahead in the polls before the rioting this weekend. Why? Because central to her campaign has been the cost of living crisis here in France. And, you know, the fact that ordinary French people, not your super-rich French people, are struggling with the cost of living. That's been central to her campaign, equally to Jean-Luc Mélenchon as well. And also, it's worth saying that Marine Le Pen really went up in the polls off the back of the Iran war. And, of course, fuel here becoming, you know, increasingly higher price as it has around the world. But that also hitting French people in their pocket as well. I hope I can bring you up a little poster, you might say, from Odoxa. And it's worth saying that this is, depending on particular scenarios, this is relating to the first round. But what it suggests is that Marine Le Pen in the first round of elections would garner between 37 to 38 percent of the vote. There you go. There we have it here for you. The far left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, would come in second. And that would be with 18 or perhaps 18.5 percent. And that would be in those two scenarios that I've suggested there. They were put up against or tested between two centrist candidates. That's Edouard Philippe, Gabriel Attal, both of whom who served in Macron's government as prime ministers. Edouard Philippe, then, as you can see on your screens, would be coming up, seen as getting about 17 percent of the vote, while trailing behind him would be Attal who would only garner according once again to this poll which depends on scenarios, which only looks at the first round of the vote. The thing to take away from this would be that Marine Le Pen is far ahead. She would easily win the first round and also potentially a second round. Of course, there are people quite sceptical of these polls but the fact of the matter is several polls across the country from different providers, different sources are giving that scenario. Rochelle, thank you very much for that. Rochelle Ferguson-Bouyari, who will be listening to the questions from the government in this edition, the government that's in the hot seat for shortfalls over the weekend to secure those protests.