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00:00Eric Ciotti is claiming today he's still the leader of the Republican Party, even though
00:06yesterday he was ousted by party leadership because he was seeking an electoral alliance
00:11with the National Rally, that's the far-right party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.
00:18Well, let's go now straight to the headquarters of the Republican Party. Clare Pakala has spent
00:23the day there covering developments for us. Clare, what can you tell us this hour?
00:30Well, the latest I have for you, Nadia, is that François-Xavier Bellamy, who is a senior figure
00:37in the Republican Party, he was heading the list of the party in the European elections that we
00:42saw last weekend. He walked out of the headquarters just behind me a little earlier on, but he did not
00:49make a statement. Dozens of us reporters, we followed him down the street, he just kept
00:53repeating, I'm not going to make a statement, I'm going to the metro. So we didn't get anything out
00:57of him. All we do know is that those who are against Éric Ciotti and who are keen to get him
01:02out of the party as quickly as possible, and they are very much against Éric Ciotti's decision to
01:06align himself with the far-right, those in the party who are against that heavyweight, they are
01:11meeting by videoconference later on today and they say that it's almost the end and that they are
01:18finalising the legal details that need to be finalised in order to validate his expulsion
01:24from the party. Meanwhile though, Éric Ciotti is saying that he will challenge that decision
01:30in court. He is on Twitter tweeting every now and again, we just saw a tweet from him or on X,
01:35a post from him saying that he has 60,000 people, members of the Republican Party, who have signed
01:41a petition saying that they are against him being expelled from the party and that they are in favour
01:46of his decision to align himself with the far-right. So what you have really is the Republican Party is
01:50tearing itself down the middle, those who are in favour of Éric Ciotti and those who are against
01:56his decision to align himself with the far-right and it's not really quite clear where the members,
02:00where the base of the party sit right now. Both sides are claiming to have the base and the members
02:04on their side. Right Claire, and you may have just heard there from Clovis Casali, our reporter who's
02:09covering developments on the left today, he was telling us that there are these negotiations going
02:14on right now to work out which left-wing party will field candidates in particular seats.
02:21On the right, do we know who will be placed where at this point?
02:27Well the deadline is Sunday so they need to make their minds up soon and this infighting is not
02:32making things easier. What we know is that Éric Ciotti and his protégé Christelle d'Antony,
02:39they are the only two members of parliament for the Republican Party for the moment
02:43who've come out publicly saying that they will run aligned to the far-right. That's what we know
02:50for now and we do understand that the Republican Party, those heavyweights who are against Éric
02:55Ciotti's decision to align himself with the far-right, they are saying they will put forward
02:59a candidate in Éric Ciotti's constituency which would mean he would be theoretically running
03:04against someone from his own party, someone who is against his decision to align himself
03:08with the far-right. So it's a very blurred picture for the moment but the party of course
03:14needs to get its act together soon if it has any hope of doing well in these parliamentary elections
03:19that we'll have here, the snap elections, the first round of which will take place on the 30th of June
03:24so in less than three weeks. Always great to talk to you, thanks very much. Clare Pakala for us there.