weekend, explain why that delay. yeah, well, the reality is, that high energy prices, there s a big fear in brussels and other european capitals that high energy prices result in a boost to populous politicians. politician that s have in the past supported russia, supported putin. and they ve seen that this is just not the time they want to make this risk. they don t want to you know, president macron is facing a very serious challenge from french far right la pen, with the fear he could be unseated if something like that happens and there s a wave of populous support. we ve seen other right wing populous leaders also do well despite the kremlin s war right now victor or bomb and we saw political victories elsewhere so
challenger marie la pen. there s oddly enough, the conservative candidate who is questioning a roll back in the retirement age to try to make it earlier in france and these views espoused by macron and climate change measures some in france say go too far and put too many restrictions on them and both of them expressing what s going on in france, an italian word and they get annoyed when do you that. and this is an almost a daily occurrence going on and a contest that could set the tone or tenor in that direction. and she is of the view here that all of this commitment, resources to ukraine on the part of france is a big
macron bested la pen in a testy contest in 2017. sunday s results mean voters will have to cast their ballots once more since neither candidate got 50% of the vote. macron tallied in at almost 28% of the votes and wla pen traile at 23%. melissa bell joins us from paris and melissa, this race could have direct implications on russia and putin s invasion of ukraine. absolutely and france s position in the world and the future of europe itself, jake. there s a lot at stake and what we saw in this first round was macron consolidate his position. he did better than in 2017 but also la pen doing the same. with two starkly different views of france, the future. and what we see now is a confirmation of what we saw in 2017. this time, they didn t even get the 5% they needed to claim back the millions they spent on their
ahead, in fact, by a larger margin than he was five years ago, so hopefully the people to have france will deliver the verdict that not only the french but the rest of the world needs. i take the ambassador s point. it also shows you how tenuous these alliances are. that as we are having this conversation, there are still many elements that are in flux. look, in terms of ukraine and la pen, you know, the russians deny, you know, these atrocities. and what s interesting is that this is the same playbook that we saw in the war in bosnia. you know, there were shelling of marketplaces in sarajevo and the serbs with russian backing that were put out there, or that the bosnian muslims had fired these shells, and that s false. the difference now is that we re in digital age, that misinformation can spread to france, lies that russia isn t