British barrister Adrian Davies returns to the program for an exceptionally well-informed deep dive into the Afro-Muslim riots in France. It is difficult to overstate what’s happening right now in Paris. If these developments interest you, and they should, be sure to catch this hour.
[00:00:01] You're listening to the Liberty News Radio Network, and this is The Political Cesspool. The Political Cesspool, known across the South and worldwide as the South's foremost populist conservative radio program. And here to guide you through the murky waters of The Political Cesspool is your host, James Edwards.
[00:00:28] All right, welcome to the Nights at Live Broadcast of TPC, a week before Halloween, a little less than two weeks before the midterm elections. We've got a busy show for you tonight, if we can get it up and running. I will be talking this first hour with British barrister Adrian Davis, who is an Englishman, of course, by birth and by blood, but a Francophile by nature.
[00:00:55] And he has an extensive knowledge about all things pertaining to French politics and, of course, culture and the situation over there, which has it really cannot be overstated. The Afro-Muslim riots in France, it is hard to overstate what's happening right now in Paris. And so we're going to have an exceptionally well-informed guest to provide a deep dive on this.
[00:01:22] And if these developments interest you, and they should, we encourage you to stay tuned this hour when we get him connected in London. Just talked to him a few minutes ago, and we're working to connect with him now. In the second hour, political guru Lou Moore will call in with a report from Michigan where he addressed a prestigious forum earlier in the day. So we will get a little bit more information about what he was doing and what that event was like.
[00:01:50] And we'll also continue to examine polls that predict a biblical wipeout for Republicans in November. That's coming up in the second hour with Ron Paul's former campaign manager, Lou Moore. But now the aforementioned Adrian Davis is with us live from London. And Adrian, I am so thankful to have you tonight to talk about this issue. As I said, very difficult to overstate the situation on the ground right now in France.
[00:02:17] I will just begin it with this, as you and I were talking about a few minutes ago, Adrian. And that is the fact that the law enforcement in France have told citizens to prepare for their own protection. We are talking about now a crisis that has risen to the level of a failed state. Adrian, to you, my friend.
[00:02:43] Yeah, that is a particularly crazy order to give or suggestion to make. France compared to England is a relatively heavily armed country.
[00:02:55] And the febrile state of, pretty well, the whole French population at the moment suggests that telling people to prepare to defend their own commercial premises against marauding gangs of looters is going to lead to very violent confrontations indeed. I cannot imagine what has gotten to President Macron's head to say that.
[00:03:20] It's basically an abdication, as you say, of state responsibility for maintenance of law and order and suggesting to people they should take the law into their own hands. They've been abandoned by the state and they'll have to defend their own property as best they can. It is quite, quite remarkable and extremely stupid. Well, I mean, you put it this way. We had a wonderful conversation for about 20 minutes, about an hour ago prior to the show.
[00:03:46] And you used the word a disintegrating state, that the situation there, the political and the political situation there has disintegrated at this point. And another thing you and I were talking about, Adrian, is that when I first heard about these riots, I was just thinking, well, this is just another example of bad actors behaving badly. You've certainly had, as you put it, these marauding Afro-Muslims wreaking havoc in Europe for many years now. And I thought this was just another manifestation of that.
[00:04:14] But as you said, and when someone with your level of political acumen says something like this to me, my eyes pop a little bit. You said, this one really does feel different. It certainly seems to have been organized in large measure by far left groups. A lot of anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists have got weird ideas that this is somehow something to do with Islamists. I don't think that's so for a moment.
[00:04:42] The adherence of these populations to Islam is about as serious as that of many Europeans to Christianity. They're nominally Muslims and no doubt they won't eat pork and so on, but their behavior is way below anything to be tolerated in any Islamic country. They're essentially deracinated urban populations who are prone to violence.
[00:05:10] But the forces behind it, in so far as we can tell, seem to be extreme left wing groups, similar to your Antifa. One of the most shocking episodes last week was when the very beautiful, very historic town hall of Limonnes, which, by the way, is quite a small town. One of the shocking things about this violence is it's not just in Paris and Lyon.
[00:05:35] Marseille is actually relatively calm at the moment, which is the other city where you expect trouble of this kind. But not only in Paris and Lyon, and far from it is worse in Paris. Some of the worst effects would be relatively small provincial towns. In Limonnes, the town hall was a very beautiful 19th century building. It was burnt to the ground.
[00:05:55] The perpetrator of that attack appears to be a completely indigenous Frenchman with a long, long track record of involvement in far-left groups of Trotskyite inspiration. Very similar, as I say, to your Antifa. He is in police custody, as is another older man who may believe to be his father, and who also has a long track record of involvement in the extreme left.
[00:06:24] So it does appear that there are agitators, significant numbers of agitators from extreme left-wing groups. One of the few things about which I think I, and President Macron, would wholeheartedly agree is he said the same thing. In that respect, he's not wrong. Well, so here is the situation. He has a problem. Well, I was just going to say, I mean, just to give people, if they've only loosely followed this story,
[00:06:52] and until you really begin to research exactly what's happening on the ground or have friends, as I do, who are so well-informed about it, who pass along notes to me, which we have turned into this interview with you, it's just remarkable. So the palace is barricaded. The Louvre is shut. But, you know, so the curfew obviously is not working. And then, I mean, the situation on the ground is untenable. You're seeing, of course, tear gas, but even water cannons, they're not working either. Mortars.
[00:07:21] I mean, it's basically powerful fireworks, but still strong enough to cause injury. Again, it appears as though, at least for the moment, the state has fallen. And we were talking about, you know, would there be a chance for a military coup? That's not really in France's DNA, but revolutions are. I think that is an exaggerated statement. The state has not fallen. The French state could crush these riots in 24 hours if it wanted to.
[00:07:48] But that would involve the use of heavy force. And there, I think, various problems which make that, in practical terms, difficult. One problem which the French government has is that the police are extremely disaffected. They feel that they've been used for far too long as a kind of fire brigade to put out these urban disturbances.
[00:08:16] And when something happens, I was accused of using excessive force. The policeman has been charged. Last weekend's violence, the police used stun grenades. They were throwing them back at the demonstrators who were throwing bricks and petrol bombs or whatever at them. One of them took the hand off one of these young enrichers who was running wild through the streets. Now the police officer who threw the stun grenades being charged with causing grievous bodily harm to the demonstrator.
[00:08:43] Well, the result of that is the police almost deliberately now are letting the government stew in its own juice. If they're not going to get the support of the government when they are charged with excessive force in putting down the riots, then they're just not going to use excessive force or let it go on. It's quite good your next round of wage negotiations, too. Unless you pay us more money, we won't be terribly keen to go out there and fight all these rioters.
[00:09:13] And they'll burn the Champs-Élysées down. The French police are highly unionized and perfectly capable of taking that attitude. Very, very much so. One of the problems the government has is its own security forces don't like Macron much. No one does. Everybody hates him. That's the one thing which unites people across social classes, ethnicity, religion, and political opinion. They all hate President Macron.
[00:09:40] The rioters and the police roughly equally hate President Macron. So it's a very difficult situation for him. His own, as I say, his own police force is not willing to take big risks. And by big risks, I mean the risk of being prosecuted for what they do to suppress the riots. That's what bothers them. Well, let me ask you this, Adrian. We were talking about the prospects of a military coup restoring order.
[00:10:09] And you said that's not really in the French DNA. But as I was saying just a moment ago, as you pointed out in our conversation earlier, the revolutions certainly are. And France has seen a history of street protests. Many of them have been violent. How does this – how may the dust settle? You say that the next French election is not until the spring of next year. Does this thing continue throughout the winter when cold normally puts a damper on some of these enriching activities of the migrants or what? Who knows?
[00:10:39] Who knows? It depends in part. There's a mix. There's a very febrile mix there. There's a mix of disaffected urban populations. And then there is the role of the far left in inciting these riots.
[00:10:56] I could not give you a judgment on how far the riots simply represent the rage against society of asocial elements that are incapable of useful employment. We never get any in France. There's structurally very high unemployment anyway for various reasons. Mainly it's almost impossible to get rid of a worker once you've taken them on. France has fantastic employment protections, which means that once you engage them, you can't get rid of them.
[00:11:25] One of the consequences of that is there's a great reluctance to take on employees. A large section – imagine what some of these urban youths are like. You can give one of them a job. It'd have to be insane. How much this simply is essentially the rage of the angry, urban – what can I say?
[00:11:52] People of particular backgrounds, though they're not the only ones involved in these terms. How much it is a result of far-left agitation? In other words, would they be rioting this way without the activities of Trotskyite groups? I don't know the answer to that. This is classic here in America, too. Of course, during all of the unrest of the 1960s, it wasn't Martin Luther King and his ilk that was actually organizing it. And I'm sure that there's a similar thread there in France now.
[00:12:19] However, I mean, a lot of the people doing it are – let's just say they didn't look like Napoleon. But I was asking you this. Some of the worst do. The people – a few months ago, a young nationalist activist was murdered in Lyon by a left-wing – members of a left-wing organization, one of whom worked for a member of the French National Assembly for the deranged Trotskyite, La France Insoumise Party,
[00:12:48] which is an import political party in France. They ambushed and beat to death a young nationalist activist in the street. These people are extremely vicious. They are at least as vicious as your Antifa. They seem to be, if anything, better organized. They represent a significant and very dangerous minority. The French government has tolerated these people and has put out a big problem for them.
[00:13:14] The inherent problem in the French political system is that it doesn't throw up political majorities very easily. And you need to form – the French electoral system basically works on two rounds. The first round eliminates all but a couple of the candidates. Then they go head-to-head in the second round, unless somebody's polled more than 50% of the vote in the first round.
[00:13:37] One of the problems this has caused for the French left is that relatively sane parties, such as the socialists, who don't agree with their views, but their constitutional party then use violence. Even by the way, the French Communist Party doesn't use violence. It's the constitutional party. The party which is very close to the violent Trotskyite groups is La France Insoumise.
[00:14:00] The likely runoff in the French presidential election next year is between Marine Le Pen and the up-de-de-range Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of La France Insoumise. The opinion polls today show that support for both Le Pen and Mélenchon is rising. So it really is a case of things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. The France is polarizing left and right at the same time. Okay, so let's talk about this.
[00:14:29] This is a reflection on the failure of President Macron's presidency. He's ending in complete disaster. I want to get into the, during the second half of this hour, I want to do a rapid-fire segment where we get through as many of these questions that I emailed to you before the show as we can. But before we, and Marine Le Pen will feature in that line of questioning, and I want to get your take on that. But before we do, just going back to the general broad scope here,
[00:14:56] I was asking, you know what, we know it wasn't these people protesting as the media insists that they were upset that their teachers weren't being paid enough and that their school buildings weren't nice enough. I mean, nice enough to what compared to where they came from? I'm sure whatever education they were getting was. So we know that that's not the reason they asked people to use the catalyst. Well, they were a lot nicer before they burnt them to the ground. If you're complaining about the condition of your classroom, it's generally not a good idea to set the school on fire.
[00:15:27] Okay, so with that having been, that's a touche, my friend. And with that being understood, I asked you, you know, what really was the catalyst for this particular kickoff? And you basically just said it was accumulation of bad policies for so many decades, if I'm paraphrasing here, and basically the bill has come due. But you went into a little bit more detail than that. Yeah. This is so. This problem, the problems which the French state face, as you may have seen, rioting is now spreading across other countries.
[00:15:57] Italy is badly affected. Belgium. There's serious violence in Italy at present under a right-wing government, which is itself struggling to repress the demonstrations, the very violent demonstrations that are going on in some major Italian cities. So this is not a uniquely French phenomenon. And I see now that serious writing is broken out in Barcelona, in Spain.
[00:16:22] So somebody has commented, oddly enough, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Zagreb, all seem to be remarkably calm. What makes those cities different, I ask myself? I can't think. But all the highly diverse and vibrant and enriched places seem to be cooking off at the moment. But the problems in many ways in French society are structural.
[00:16:47] For decades, French cities have tended to nurture these appalling suburbs, which become more and more outside the control of the state. The police won't go there except an enormous force for a special operation of some kind. They tend to be controlled by drug gangs and petty criminals of various sorts.
[00:17:09] They actually resemble Cite Soleil in Haiti more than they do a normal French society, some of them. So it's maybe a slight exaggeration. We get the general picture. These places were around 20, 30, even 40 years ago. I lived in Paris in the 1980s. It was, believe you me, it was quite apparent which way things were going then.
[00:17:36] Absolutely obvious where all the direction of travel was. And you have seen in France, as well as Canada and other places in recent years, some grassroots populist rebellion to an extent and for a short period. I mean, specifically with regards to France, I think the Yellow Vest movement and various farmers groups, I mean, they've marched on Paris over gas and grain prices. Are these same blue-collar rural Frenchmen setting this one out? Well, a lot of them have been writing too.
[00:18:05] They also hate Macron. So they may not be writing in quite the same way. They're demonstrating and so on. Yeah, one of the problems the president faces is just total disaffection across huge swathes of society for different reasons. It is not the case that these disturbances are completely without any basis of genuine grievance.
[00:18:32] There are big problems in France, particularly with the high levels of unemployment that I mentioned, that leave an awful lot of people, whether they're people of indigenous French or immigrant background, with very little hope for the future. There's certainly very little hope of gainful employment. France has got significant problems which have not been addressed.
[00:18:57] One of the bad aspects of French society is that it was very easy for a very long time to live in what they call the beau quartier, the pleasant arrondissement of Paris, and be very, very sheltered from what the problems of the outer suburbs of the city were. There was a good police presence, law and order well-maintained. You weren't really touched by the problems in any significant measure.
[00:19:27] That, I think, made a lot of people complacent for far too long. They knew there were problems in what they called les banlieues, the suburbs, but they didn't care. Those things didn't affect their day-to-day lives, as they do now. You had mentioned a moment ago that people with a knowledge of major players in Europe and our American listening audience would know the name Peter Rushton,
[00:19:55] and you had mentioned that Peter Rushton had also commented to you that this one, it just seems like there's something more to this one than the typical riots that we have seen beset Europe for so many years now. And with everything seemingly on the table in this moment, I would ask you, understanding that Muslims believe, for instance, that paintings and sculptures depicting humans are sinful, what if they decided to attack the great museums of France?
[00:20:23] I absolutely do not buy into the idea that these riots are inspired by Islamists of any kind. There's no reason to believe that. The kind of reductionist conspiracy theories that some people have, often because they don't want to discuss the ethnic component.
[00:20:45] So instead of saying that essentially a lot of disaffection is amongst people of non-French origin who find that their lives in France... Yes, there you go. That's right. Well, so under that understanding... These people... Well, would you say then that their handlers would tell them to leave the Louvre alone? You know, and if they did destroy it, would the French simply watch... I don't think their handlers control... You stir up a mob of this kind. You don't control it. Yeah, that's right.
[00:21:13] It's an unguided missile. There's no... The people who set this off will not necessarily control the process. That's right. The process develops a life of its own. Politically, what they're doing is absolutely crazy.
[00:21:34] The one strong card that the French establishment parties had against Marine Le Pen was to say to the people that if you elect this woman and her party, our enrichers and other disaffected elements will go crazy and burn down many of our big cities. That would have been quite a good card to play.
[00:22:03] Effectively, he's threatening people with violence if they voted for the RN, saying that it would lead to what's happening. Well, that one doesn't work anymore. They've got that happening now. Again, I've seen some bizarre conspiracy theories suggesting this is supposed to be some way of intimidating the French into not voting for the Rassemblement National.
[00:22:29] Anyone who thinks that doesn't understand what's happening in French politics. He's having exactly the opposite effect. It's really now Marine Le Pen's to lose. It probably was anyway, but this has absolutely discredited the so-called sensible centrists who've lost control of their big cities. We are going to talk more, as I promised, about Marine Le Pen in the next half hour after the break.
[00:22:57] We have about a minute until we hit that break. We're skipping all the breaks except for the hard bottom of the hour break. But I would just say, I mean, is there a non-zero chance that it will have to go to the next presidential election before you get a changing of the guard? For instance, as you mentioned, Macron being disliked by both the left and the right. Who's keeping him in power? Is there a mechanism for replacing him similar to the British no-confidence vote? Or could his own party drop him in the same way the Republicans dropped Nixon?
[00:23:27] The French president is directly elected by the people. So his mandate is personal and very, very strong. But he's actually stronger in a way than that for the president of the United States of America, because your president is elected by a complicated electoral college system, which foreigners don't even fully understand. The French president is directly elected in a two-round election, in the second round, the candidates who placed first and second, first round, ran off against one another.
[00:23:56] And that has twice been now Macron against Marine Le Pen. And the vote is for the president personally, not for his political party. He's quite unlike a British prime minister who holds office so long as he commands the support of the majority or she commands the support of the majority in the House of Commons. The French president has a personal mandate and can only be removed from office. He'll go insane or something like that. Well, Macron is certainly in possession of all his faculties.
[00:24:24] He may not be in control, but he's not got mad. Hang on, folks. We're going to be right back with Adrian Davis, one of Europe's premier minds when it comes to our issues and issues of concern for our people around the world, wherever the West may breathe. He'll be right back as we continue to talk about the situation on the ground in France. Stay tuned. Exposing corruption. Informing citizens.
[00:24:54] Pursuing liberty. You're listening to Liberty News Radio. News this hour from Town Hall. I'm Mary Rose. President Trump says Iran would be wise to make a deal to bring an end to the war. Our Navy has done an incredible job. Our military has done. They have no jet fighters left. They're all gone. There are 259 jet fighters. You know who they are? Laying out all over the runway in little pieces.
[00:25:20] The president spoke to reporters after casting his ballot in West Palm Beach, Florida on Saturday. A polling scandal is renewing doubts about political surveys just days before the midterm elections. Correspondent Ken Lorman reports Wedgwood Polls says most of its results were fabricated as a social experiment to expose weaknesses in industry vetting. But its numbers were cited by media outlets and polling aggregators.
[00:25:47] Many conservatives maintain that modern polling is unreliable due to low response rates and failure to capture shifting voter behaviors, particularly among black voters who are increasingly abandoning Democrats. In the 2026 midterms, this shift is undermining TSA-aligned candidates in blue states like Michigan. Ken Lorman reporting.
[00:26:11] A major immigration scandal rocked Congress this week when Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar refused to confirm or deny that she married a family member to get around U.S. immigration laws. Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar's home has been searched by federal agents who seized her phone, computer, and passport in an investigation into possible immigration fraud. When asked whether she married her brother to help him enter the country, the congresswoman answered, not to my knowledge.
[00:26:40] Investigators also obtained DNA evidence and a search warrant signed by a Democrat-appointed judge. The case remains active. Willie Nelson, Washington. Ilhan Omar was born in Somalia on October 4, 1982. More on these stories at townhall.com. Larry Elder here. When it comes to supplements, two things matter most. It works and you can trust it. Rather than just tell you about Relief Factor, we let our customers do it.
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[00:28:01] Did you know that every issue of the American Free Press now features my own published Q&A interviews with one of your favorite guests from the radio program? That's right. The American Free Press has officially partnered with TPC to expand our audience into the realm of print media. I encourage you to read it for yourself by subscribing today at AmericanFreePress.net. Did you know that regular TPC contributors like Nick Griffin and Jose Nino also have their own exclusive, insightful, and hard-hitting columns published in every issue of the American Free Press?
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[00:29:45] Dixie Republic. We're not just a roadside attraction. We're a destination for our people. For more information, visit DixieRepublic.com. Before we continue this enthralling conversation, let me give you a little bit more background about our featured guest tonight.
[00:30:13] Adrian Davis was educated at Cambridge University. He later pursued further studies at the Ceylon in Paris, of all places, and University College in London. After eight years as an associate in a leading law firm in the city of London, he set up a practice on his own account as a barrister. That is, of course, here in the United States, what we call a trial lawyer. But over there, he gets to wear the horsehair wig and black stuff gown in court.
[00:30:38] And over the past 30 years, he has represented many normie clients and a clutch of political dissidents as well. Adrian has been involved in populist and nationalist politics in Great Britain for 45 years, even standing as a parliamentary candidate in South Staffordshire in 2005. He has known many of the personalities involved not only in British but also French nationalist circles for more than 40 years.
[00:31:07] And it is that last sentence that brings him back with us tonight to discuss this issue on the ground in France. It's had the privilege of sharing a meal with Adrian last month in Washington, D.C., and it's great to talk to him again tonight. And so, Adrian, with that having been said, let's get right back to it.
[00:31:30] So, looking forward to the next national election in France, which is coming up, I believe, in April. Now, there is a lot of time between now and then and where things stand right now. Only your worst nightmares could imagine where it could possibly go. I know – I just want to circle back to this very quickly and then we'll focus on Le Pen. But you're saying there is virtually no chance of a Franco-style military coup.
[00:31:56] I do believe, if my research is right, that a failed coup attempt occurred when Charles de Gaulle granted Algeria independence. But you don't think that there's anyone who's going to engage in any sort of activity like that to arrest Macron and take charge? Well, no one in their right mind would do that. He's a constitutionally elected president. He's going in April of next year.
[00:32:24] He has less and less authority with each passing day. I can't imagine why anyone would wish to take any step to set the existing constitution, or the least of all anybody on the right, which must anticipate a victory in the next French presidential election by a large margin. I would largely agree with you.
[00:32:46] I guess the only way that you would consider that to be a little more realistic than fanciful would be if this further devolves into just blood on the streets. And who's to say? Let's hope that that doesn't happen. But let's talk about Marine Le Pen now. So what is your take on her overall? I mean, she's interesting. I mean, for a lot of reasons. Of course, her family is interesting. Her father was exceptionally interesting. But she denounced him at some point publicly.
[00:33:15] And do you believe if she does take over that she genuinely intends to carry out mass deportations? And if so, can the ruling elite even possibly allow her to come to power? Well, I don't know. She said she was going to carry out mass deportations. I think that may actually be forced upon her. Well, if you know, to some extent, be forced upon her. But what she will do in office remains to be seen. Remember that the French president isn't a dictator, number one.
[00:33:44] Secondly, the way the constitution of the Fifth Republic works is this. The French president controls foreign policy and defense, his commander-in-chief and so on, much like your president. But the government is drawn from the National Assembly. It doesn't work on the U.S. system where the president just chooses his cabinet from randomly whoever he fancies pretty well.
[00:34:10] It's drawn from the lower house of the, by and large, the lower house of the French parliament. So they will follow the presidential election. They will follow new elections in the National Assembly. It's very important from the Rassemblement National's point of view to carry those elections as well. It's necessary to have a majority in at least the lower house of the French parliament. The upper house of the Senate is elected by a peculiar indirect suffrage.
[00:34:38] And that doesn't work in quite the same way. But there will be, therefore, a whole series of elections. There will be the presidential election, which takes place in two rounds. It's separated by a fortnight. Then the president will call new elections. The National Assemblies will take place in May. So France is going to have an awful lot of elections next year. But it is important for any incoming president to have a national assembly,
[00:35:05] which he or she commands a majority support in order to have a stable government. One of Macron's problems is that he no longer commands a majority in the National Assembly. And so he has to find a series of coalition prime ministers to make him very much a lame duck president. You had talked also about – I mean, so this would be a, quote, unquote, let me not be cliché here,
[00:35:35] but a peaceful transfer of power on schedule with the next presidential election. But, you know, you and I were talking about, quite interestingly, about the history of revolution in France. And you can quickly, if you don't mind, Adrian, remind people of that history over here in America. We're not quite as well informed on that history as people on the continent are. But you don't see anything – you were saying, though, since the last one, what's a little bit uncommon is that it has been so long since they've had a revolution in France, a proper revolution.
[00:36:04] Do you see anything like that on the horizon? Or you're just expecting the next election to take care of these things for now? The institutions of the Fifth Republic have been very stable. They are, to that extent, as we were discussing earlier, anomalous in French history. Since 1789, there have been five republics, two restorations of the Bourbon monarchy, two military dictatorships under Napoleon Bonaparte, the so-called July monarchy,
[00:36:33] when the Bourbon were deposed by their own cousins, the Orléans, and the Third Empire, so-called by Napoleon's nephew or great-nephew, I forget which he was, Napoleon III. And finally, the VGC state. That's 12 changes of government in, what, 237 years, which gives you some idea of the average length of a French government. Many of them accompanied by extreme violence,
[00:37:01] the massacres of large numbers of supporters of the previous regime, etc. What is unusual is that since 1965, when Charles de Gaulle established the Fifth Republic, France has been immensely stable. There have been peaceful alternations of conservative and socialist governments, and the constitution has worked well.
[00:37:24] So I'm not expecting there to be any serious opposition of, well, not from the French establishment. Whether you will get far-left mobs of various kinds rioting against the Benin, it seems very likely you will, from what we can see at the moment. But the idea that somehow established politicians would seek to prevent her taking office, I think is fanciful.
[00:37:53] If she's elected, she will simply assume the presidency. I can't imagine Macron himself, or whatever else he may be, has a sense of constitutional propriety, not handing over the insignia of office to her, probably quite politely. I gather their personal relationship isn't bad. So you think that she will actually win this time, and if she does, will she be a positive change in France?
[00:38:21] Will she bring with her a positive change in France, or will she be just another right-wing candidate who disappoints once they become elected? We've seen that, well, have we ever not seen that? Well, the second question is very difficult. At present, as I say, I'm not a prophet, but at present, the election is on the Marine Le Pen's to lose. If her opponent is Mélenchon,
[00:38:49] which seems to be likely in the second round at present, it's rather, well, just think of the craziest, just think of having a run election, where you've got J.D. Vance on one side, Nilan Omar as the Democratic candidate. It's going to be a bit like that. There's some which is quite hard to lose, even if you try, aren't there? Mélenchon is at that level of crazy.
[00:39:17] He is a Trotskyite. There is no other way of describing him. He is a left-wing extremist whose party bears significant responsibility for what's happening at the moment. He's right now. He realizes that things are getting out of hand and that he's been blamed for it. That's his problem, frankly. He was more or less egging these people on two weeks ago. He didn't want it to get as bad as it is. But again, he's fine. He can't stop it. Whether she would,
[00:39:45] what she would do in office will depend upon a whole range of factors. One we, I've just mentioned is whether she actually has a majority in the French National Assembly to support her. Because the president's role in domestic affairs in France is somewhat limited. That domestic affairs largely conducted by the prime minister.
[00:40:10] The principal authority of the president is over foreign policy and defense, although the president appoints the prime minister, or only appoint a prime minister who can command majority support. So that's one question. That's a purely constitutional technicality. The second, about how far she would be willing to go in pursuing more radical policies than she's presently putting forward. I don't know.
[00:40:36] My opinion of her is that she's a very courageous woman. She's very, very determined. She has fought the fight for a long time. She didn't need to get involved in politics. She has a successful career as a lawyer. And she showed little early sign of getting involved in politics. She has fought, I think, three presidential elections already.
[00:41:04] And many people would have given up, but particularly after, I think, the first time she stood against Macron, when she performed very badly in the presidential debate. He really rang rings around her. Her knowledge of economics was manifestly inadequate. She was a lot better the second time. She has really fought on. And she has some admirable qualities. I'd say she's extremely personally courageous. Her life is on the line every day. Some lunatic might try to murder her.
[00:41:33] That's already happened, as you may know, when she was a child, because the house in which the Le Pen family lived was bombed in the early 70s. And she was a nine-year-old, was almost killed then. It was an assassination attempt from her father. She was asleep in her bedroom as a small child. And the bomb goes off in the house, which is not normal childhood. Yeah, I'll say.
[00:42:00] She's also a fantastically good canvasser. She really has a rapport with ordinary people, which is remarkable, that they love her. It's quite remarkable how good she is at that. As against that, she has certainly trimmed and trimmed and trimmed and packed towards the center and diluted the policies of the party.
[00:42:29] There is no doubt about that. Well, Adrian, let me ask you this, because over here, of course, we have the Republicans and the Democrats, and one wins and the other loses, and they're really both, there's not a lot of difference in some regards, but in some regards there are, in certain levels at least, in certain candidates, in certain smaller races. But, over there, you have a much different system, as of course people know, but there you have many more parties that are in play.
[00:42:58] And with regard to her winning the next presidential election, how likely is it, or is it possible, that these other parties would just collude and form a coalition against her to defeat her again? Well, the way it goes is, it's a two-round system. So, the first and second place candidates run off against one another in the second round. At the moment, she is likely to be first place, and the second place is likely to be Mélenchon. It is almost impossible to lose against Mélenchon. He is so extreme,
[00:43:27] and so far to the left, of about 70% of French society, that to lose against him would be a significant achievement. I mean, he would really have to try. The aim of the French establishment is to push Mélenchon into third place and find a more centrist candidate who they believe would have a better chance against her. And there is no doubt that the more centrist candidate that would poll significantly better in the second round,
[00:43:57] the Mélenchon. On present trends, it seems likely that she would win against any candidate. What is certain, as certain as anything can be in human affairs, is that she would win against an extreme left-wing candidate. The problem that the French establishment and the French political class face is they're likely to have two candidates, neither of whom they wish to be president, running off against one another. And I say,
[00:44:24] the more respectable left-wing parties in France are paying a terrible price, a thoroughly deserved price, for having linked up with La France insumis, who, they form the natural alliances with them because you have to, in the second round of a French election, to get people to transfer their votes over to you. But the price for that is that the more respectful French left parties are tainted by association with violent, dangerous,
[00:44:55] Trotsky-like groups now associated with incitement to rioting, who the French president is publicly condemning. So it is a big, big problem. It is not like the Republicans and the Democrats. It really isn't. Normally, that is what a French election would be like, an election between, say, a socialist, the mainstream French socialist party and a goallist candidate. That would be very much like a runoff between
[00:45:24] a Democrat and a Republican. But that's not what's going to happen. There's one interesting thing here that I skipped over in the first half of the hour. So what we've done this hour, we have benefited from Adrian Davis' extensive knowledge of all things pertaining to France and applied it to these ongoing riots, which have not abated. If anything, they have not abated. Not only have they not abated, they have exacerbated. They are growing
[00:45:53] and still evolving in real time as we broadcast live tonight. And it's impossible to really predict, well, they'll go from here over the course of the next five, six months until the next presidential election in April. I mean, that remains to be seen. But I want to circle back to this one thing. In the first half of the hour, we were talking mostly about the riots themselves. And in this second half of the hour, we've been talking about the forthcoming elections and the political scene in France. But I do want to circle back now, Adrian, to the origin story of these things
[00:46:22] and an interesting anecdote along those lines. So again, the media is gaslighting everyone saying that these students are rioting because they're complaining about what they describe as a failing education system. They're just concerned scholars after all. However, France spends more per student on education than most first world countries, much less third world countries. And one of the places, one of the schools that was torched
[00:46:52] by the rioters was the Nelson Mandela School, which was a multi-million dollar or multi-million euro showpiece. And I just have to ask you, it's almost a rhetorical question, of course, but are mainstream reporters even aware of these facts? Or do they know and simply choose to act as propaganda agents? Or what's happening there with this coverage? Are you mainstream reporters in France or in England? Anybody in France is under any illusions about what's going on. Well, England,
[00:47:21] the U.S.? I mean, what I'm reading over here is the concerned scholar propaganda. Yeah, that's simply lies. It is. The Anglosphere has not been touched by these riots. I would imagine the British establishment is absolutely terrified that similar events will follow at some point in England. That said,
[00:47:49] we are an insular people and it is quite possible for a great many things to happen on the continent without people in England taking very much notice of them. So, very few English people have any command of the French language or any, the number of English people who could read the Figaro or Le Mans, which are the two serious French newspapers, the Figaro, the right-wing paper, Le Mans, the centre-left paper. It's very, very small.
[00:48:17] Most of our political class couldn't. The irony there is they're all extremely enthusiastic about Europe. They can't speak French or German or Italian or Spanish and have no knowledge of the language or culture of any European country. It's pathetic, really. But, it is, it's not something which has really, we see on our television some of the scenes of rioting within, it's very shocking, but don't any English people have any very profound understanding of what's going on. Well, I got another
[00:48:46] provocative question for you, my friend, as we begin to wrap things up and I, again, appreciate you staying up late, burning that midnight oil in the UK so we can benefit from your knowledge of this situation. But I would ask you about international players. Have any international players had a hand in this either before, during, or after the onset of these riots? Did Russia or China, for instance, have any sort of benefit in fueling these things? And I've heard it posited that Israel could have manipulated
[00:49:16] the situation as payback to Macron for his mild support of Palestine and international players in this thing. Any reason to believe that? No doubt the French establishment would love to say that Vladimir Putin is responsible for these riots. I mean, they'd say he's responsible for a bad harvest if it rains too much or if the summer's too hot or whatever. It's all a Russian conspiracy. I've got absolutely no doubt
[00:49:45] that the Russian state is taking great pleasure in what they're witnessing because Macron has been one of the big supporters of the Ukraine. So, they will no doubt be delighted at the discomfiture of one of their European enemies. countries. But they are, I think, simply watching this from a very, very long way away and laughing. It's not something they've brought about. There's absolutely
[00:50:15] no reason to believe that at all. This is a homegrown problem in France. It is all the doing of the French political class and it's been going on and on and on for generations. The French president, I think it was French president Pompidou, who was Charles de Gaulle's successor and a decent guy, wanted to cut back on immigration in the very early 1970s. And he came under enormous, he was a Gaelish president of the Gaulle's chosen heir, he came under
[00:50:44] enormous pressure from French big business to keep up the flow of cheap labour. Well, that cheap labour has proved to be very expensive, hasn't it? And Pompidou, who was no fool, he was much more of a statesman than many of his successors could see in his term of office. Now, as I say, back to the late 60s, early 70s, the way things were going. He wanted to do something about it, but because his party,
[00:51:13] just like your Republicans and our Conservatives, was the party of business, he wouldn't do things that would really antagonise the big bosses, large employers of labour, who wanted to drive down wages by bringing in cheap labour from the former French colonies. That was the big dynamic. France always has been, or for a long time has been, a highly unionised country, and the desire of French big business to drive down wages is one of the
[00:51:42] principal reasons for the problems which exist. So you don't need to look for Russian or Chinese or Israeli or Islamist or any other actors. This is a homegrown disaster. It's exactly the same mentality that you've seen in the US with a desire for cheap labour from, say, Mexico. It is the same mindset. Adrian, we've got a minute left. I want to ask a quick question and I've got a friend here that's going to be co-hosting with me for the last two hours. We're going to try
[00:52:12] to get to that too very quickly, but answer this as quickly as we can. Thank you for all your insights and then let me ask you, it's an impossible question, but as this thing began as, say, a tropical storm, let's use that analogy and it's now barreling in as a category three or four or five hurricane and showing no signs of slowing, what's left to France in April if somebody doesn't get a handle on this and can it possibly keep up this energy for that long through the winter and into next year?
[00:52:43] Well, I would assume that one of the things from which the French establishment is relying is that precisely urban mobs don't keep up that kind of energy. They go mad, burn a load of stuff down, loot a load of shops and what they're now doing, by the way, is trying to sell their loot on eBay. These are the great foot soldiers of the revolution. They're trying to sell Louis Vuitton handbags. They're looted from shops on eBay and largely getting arrested by the French police for being so stupid as to have given their bank account numbers and so on.
[00:53:13] So that must be the hope of the French state. It will just, for now, die down, that may well be fulfilled. At the moment, in London, we have a raging storm outside. It's cold and it's wet and I would imagine that the French political class are praying for lots of cold, wet weather. That will do more good in dampening the riots than anything else that they can do. Well, I appreciate that. It remains to be seen.
[00:53:43] Well, I guess we'll find out together. But Enoch Powell, Eddie Spamadier Miller, is with me and we're going to be celebrating our 22nd year on the air coming up this week, Adrian. You've been a good part of it for about as long as I can remember. Adrian, excuse me, we're out of time. We hear the music playing. I want to thank you again. Eddie is going to be with me for the next two hours and he's been waiting in the wings. But a quick comment from Enoch Powell, the ghost of Enoch Powell. Well, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you
[00:54:12] and I really do. I wish we had more time because I have a few questions I'd like to ask you but maybe we'll save that question for another time. Maybe you can come on Blood River Radio one of these days and Jim can come on and help me interview you. Well, it's always great to talk to you, Adrian, and we will talk again soon. Stay safe over there. I know you're having some bad weather in London tonight. We are. Yesterday was terrible. The trees being brought down by the storm, the rain lashing against the windows this evening. But yeah,
[00:54:42] I'm definitely staying indoors. However, it's also 1 o'clock in the morning. Natural disasters and biological ones.