French Elections: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

[Music] France home of Babar the lovable elephant who becomes less lovable when you remember that in the books he married his cousin that's right your childhood elephant hero was a cousin the point is next Sunday France holds the first round of its presidential election and if you're thinking well why should I care about that the truth is it is way more important than you might realize it's a very important election what's going to happen in front of it the future of Europe basically overwhelmingly Frances the election that matters but these French elections take place at the crossroad of European history it's really defining Europe's fate that's right the fate of your breasts in the hands of a country that looks at snails and says I have got to get you in my mouth but it is not an exaggeration to say that post brexit and with a wave of far-right populism sweeping Europe the fate of the EU may hang on this election multiple candidates support a French brexit and the consequences of that would be steep and frankly it's not bragging that your French is out of the EU is the end of the EU and the end of the eurozone so a lot of things we get they're not the result of the French elections it's true this could be the most disastrous French exit in history and that is acknowledging that a French exit normally refers to drinking an entire bottle of red wine and then leaving the party with the hosts wife so so this is a critical election or technically to critical elections the election takes place in two rounds one on April the 23rd the next on May the 7th the first round will see all the candidates complete the votes in the second achieving nobody got more than half the votes in the first round the top two contenders will face off what a ridiculous system well the 51 individual contest and a lot points based on outdated demographic data that can result in a decisive loser in the popular vote count somehow winning that's just stupid growing your brawn they're still working out the kids and their democracy this collection comes at a time of great volatility France has suffered a string of major terror attacks their unemployment rate is hovering around 10 percent and their current president Francois Hollande isn't even running for a pretty good reason the latest opinion polls have come out Francois Hollande is at an all-time low I mean even got close to zero we get ready for it according to this poll only four percent of French people are satisfied by francois or noms presidency four percent all percent to put that in perspective apparently the very lowest album school in Metacritic history is 15 percent that Kevin Federline's playing with fire an album about which billboard raved in general Federline enunciates well but even without alarms running his Socialist Party is divided and struggling with one early contender to replace him Manuel Valls so widely disliked that this happened yahoo know it happened an hour ago in this cafe behind me cafe boy well-known to spaz berg residence a man approached Manuel Valls and threw flour at him look anywhere else it might be a bad sign to have flour thrown at you but in a country where pastries have greater constitutional rights and people it is technically possible that that was actually an honor so who is running for this important job well well there are actually 11 candidates at the moment and we'll get to the main ones in a minute but first you're going to want to meet some of the outsiders there is Jacques Chaminade a conspiracy theorist who once said that the Queen of England was involved in international drug trafficking and whose platform includes a plan to colonize Mars which he explained magnificently Raja napadas reported airspace trendy user object below convey a loser a Star Wars awesome a so Star Wars a reckless pace dosa now if they were girls and I found out here people you're right he just said Larry Skywalker and that weird bear presumably meaning to Baca I really think that should have been those characters names instead hi I'm Han Solo this is Larry and this is our friend that weird bear or whatever the is I don't know then there is no laugh at who as you can see is almost effectively French he once went on a 39 day hunger strike to protest a threat to jobs to his constituency and his campaign ads are mesmerizing he wrote on a train in lieu D black and white works on his farm dances around and then mows a hillside shirtless his entire life seems like an attempt to win the game show called so you think you can fry the thing is that there are currently four main candidates with a real shot at getting to the second round there is Francois Fiat the former French Prime Minister now he was once the leading candidate but has since fallen back in the polls thanks to Penelope gate which sounds like a scandal involving selling weapons-grade uranium to Penelope Cruz but but it actually involves fear allegedly paying his wife Penelope and children hundreds of thousands of euros of public money for little or no work and the accusations don't stop there there are reports he may have breached electoral rules after receiving a donation of two suits that together cost thirteen thousand euros I am perfectly allowed to be given a suit by a friend it's not against the law oh you're right that is a completely normal thing for adult friends to do happy birthday friend I've got you two suits that cost about seven thousand dollars each because that is a non suspicious amount to spend on a gift for a friend how not weird is this couldn't be not weird or right so the French public turned on fear and you will never guess how they express their anger moments before he took the stage at a rally you'll see he was hit in the face with some flour the images of that happening right there now apparently he had a spare suit luckily for him oh no doesn't look great but without a brand-new suit when you've been essentially accused of having been bribed in the suits ready to go for a t-shirt and shorts there now next there is far left candidate jean-luc mélenchon who is anti-eu and pro hi-tech campaign wizardry answering the eternal question of how to be in two places at once presidential candidates on commercial has embraced Holograms where am I in the Old MacDonald and now in Paris [Music] cool boat very lame and very costly it was finding out your uncle's detachable thumb trick cost him four hundred thousand dollars and that brings us to the two current frontrunner and first let's deal with Emmanuel macron poll suggests that he is the favorite to win the presidency which is actually impressive considering he's never held elected office before he is a former banker who served as an economic adviser to along and if you are falling asleep just listening to me describe him you're not alone mr. McRoy who is neither left nor right and is generally inoffensive to the entire population is not super attractive to anyone ouch he is generally inoffensive and not super attractive to anyone that makes him sound like he's the guy who played the main character on How I Met Your Mother this man and this is true has no name MacGraw as a centrist policy that is pro-business pro-europe and aimed at boosting Frances economy but the most interesting thing about him might be this Immanuel Michael Wood was a small-town boy from amia who met his future wife here at school the only twist is that she was his teacher it's true he married his Prince Peter who is 20 years older than him and as a result macron a 39 year old man now has seven step grandchildren and I'm sorry but a man in his thirties suddenly ending up with seven step grandchildren self at the plot of a direct-to-dvd Ashton Kutcher movie called even on a nine-hour flight this movie is unwatchable and by the way if you're wondering did macron get any baking ingredient thrown at him during the campaign well what do you think MMN we're macron just got hit in the head with an egg so Teresa study two cups of flour and now I'm eggs now I don't know if the French people are any closer to picking a president but they're about halfway to making a decent crepe and that leaves us with marine lepen microns biggest challenge and honestly she is the main reason you should be invested in this election the lepen name carries a lot of baggage in France her father was John marine lepen who co-founded her party the National Front and he is a deeply unpleasant human being Joe Murray lepen famously dismissed the Nazi gas chambers as a mere detail of history the courts have repeatedly found him guilty of questioning the Holocaust oh that's just a taster he also said of one Jewish critic will put a batch in the oven next time which is the kind of vile horrific anti-semitism that gets most people permanently banished from society as well as an Oscar nomination for directing hacks Aldridge now now marine lepen actually kicked her father out of the party and has worked very hard to rehabilitate the National Front reputation and present a softer image and to listen to one French voter it seems to have worked okay homeward Afeni why vote for national it's simple it's marine lepen if it were her father in charge it would be no because he's a crazy old man back then there were skinheads fascists in the past with marinas not like that at all there's an elegance a bit of restraint yeah but elegant presentation does not negate poisonous content a Klansman is still a Klansman even if you slap a monocle and a top hat on him and give him the cane wait wait hang on hang on take off that sheet I'm Lee not your the voice is pointing the pen is particularly popular among young people in France who have a a high rate of unemployment and I've responded to our promises to institute programs to give them jobs and encourage a national preference in employment making it more expensive for businesses to hire non-citizens but beneath her a slick presentation the Pens message is vicious a few years back he was asked about immigrants in France and while her answer started well it quickly deteriorated mr. Nottoli art USP 10-year rule a druman éstos language except oh ye dusk and estan en sus oídos capita no Jews except on a par no a coda so questions yep a cheetah a cur men posit a local developer to say a kyboot illiterate farm hold on brutalizing your weapon stealing your wallet again that's just boilerplate racism but people are coming to take my wallpaper it's something a crazy person says no one wants your wallpaper you catastrophic ly weird person and what Francie is a proudly secular society some of the pens proposals would take that to the extreme should Muslim people be allowed to wear head scarves no more poor dunno I'm opposed to wearing headscarves in public places that's not France it's not just head scarves lepen says she would ban yarmulkes in public any conspicuous symbol of religious belief what a cheek personal out to be wear a turban no no not in public no we don't have a lot of Sikhs and Rams we've got some but we don't really hear much from them or about them which is good news is it is it only such a reprehensible thing to say about people you hope to govern that and I never thought I'd say this to someone because it doesn't really make sense I hope someone steals your wallpaper I don't know why they would Marines but uh okay so 2-0 so whatever the result of this election lepen has already dangerously normalized the National Front winning seats at the local level and even a few in the legislature and one of the frustrating things about watching this unfold from America is this feels a little like deja vu a potentially destabilizing populist campaigning on anti-immigrant rhetoric who rages against the elites despite having a powerful father and inherited wealth even as all the experts reassure us that there is no way that this can possibly happen but this is she's not going to win because in the second round everybody will unite against her I would think that most people it doesn't matter which political caller will vote for my contest to block the way to marine lepen she will not me we will not have in France another Trump election she is not named Donald Abed she's just marina Levin she will not be returned that is the kind of reckless overconfidence you normally only see in a period piece movie about a tragedy right the Hindenburg is the safest form of travel there is I'd like to see static electricity even try to set bishop on fire I tells ya but I would not be so confident especially because while turnout in French presidential elections is normally around 80 percent this time whole shoulder around a third of French voters might choose to abstain and if they do that in the second round the pens very motivating voters could put her in office and that could be bad for a lot of people so please France I would like to try and convince you not to sit this election outter to do that let me appeal to your innate French sense of superiority over the US and Britain which is and it pains me to admit this not entirely misplaced real French quasi are buttery pillows of perfection whereas the American cross sandwich is an ungodly abomination yet your French wines are magnificent certainly superior to British wines which takes like Michael Caine urinated in some grave to you in France love nothing more than acting like you are better than Britain and America well now is your chance to prove that because we made populous nativist choices with brexit and Trump and to be honest it's not working out so great for us so far and now you have a populist nativist choice of your own and just imagine how superior you can feel if you don't make the same mistake that we did I really want to convince you more but I know you don't like big gaudy gestures so allow me to convince you in the elegant restrained manner that you prefer please please please join me France and a cozy be fun [Applause] never to throw another free wine for you music and smoke into each other's faces yes dongjun inicio de calais emetic Angela Republic process ojos de Condillac written each process Kayla Hassan lzb Paulo process men see Jessica Montano baka belong Rosanna in we make damn elephant we wish let people play a couch a more normative Elliott as Nene of fukube Norfolk apparently mahi-mahi brain komen do Hosea included could demagogue Moscow old Jew dokku demagogue Hoobler mucosa say see a vodka so take o Allah o turtle appeal no Sepideh Libya Oman Oman Gontier ecology day open surah liberté égalité a Eternity vault ensemble calm the Larry Skywalker cool what photographers do EV not pursue less wine we focus while Alison m41 me [Music] [Applause] Oh where did you disappear [Applause]

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 13,959,252

Keywords: last week tonight french election, last week tonight france, john oluver french election

Id: hkZir1L7fSY

Length: 18min 9sec (1089 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 16 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/taimusrs]

The ending is magnificent!

[u/Florac]

John Oliver forgot to adress the real question: Were baking supplies thrown at Le Pen?

[u/TubeUnblockv1]

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[u/twitinkie]

soyouthinkyoucanfrance

[u/solidad29]

What is the cultural significance of throwing flour / eggs at people in France?

[u/thebumm]

He said "be careful with that attitude" since prior to the US election in an interview he said a Trump presidency would "never ever happen." and also said after the election that he (as a journalist) holds no responsibility whatsoever for the increased Trump profile. It's contradictory behavior, but a meaningful warning. I do think he could have illustrated it better by being self-referential there and saying "I was like you and fucked up, don't make the same mistakes".

[u/Harald_Hardraade]

He could have talked more about the political differences between the candidates instead of just talking about Le Pen imo. I mean Melenchon would also be a very radical choice on the other side and Fillon is highly conservative in his own right. It is actually a very interesting election beyond Le Pen as well.

[u/Simalacrum]

...John Oliver can speak French?

[u/sterretje_]

Too bad the episodes are too short to cover some more aspects of this election, I was waiting for Phillipe Poutou's roast of Fillon and Le Pen but not enough time I guess.