Macron and Le Pen Go to Next Round of French Elections; American Citizen Detained in North Korea
ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: On one side, Emmanuel Macron, a wealthy investment banker, never elected to any office. Then on the other side, Marine Le Pen, a far right, a candidate who wants to shut the borders to immigrants and pull France out of the European Union. Now this is a shock to the political system of France and to the rest of the world where Europe's stability led by France can have a very wide ranging effect. First to the place where the far right candidate Le Pen just spoke to her supporters on this historic day. CNN senior international correspondent Jim Bittermann is there. I also have CNN contributor David Andelman with me from Paris, the editor emeritus of "World Policy Journal." But, Jim, first to you, what did Marine Le Pen say to the people who voted for her this evening?</s>JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think in her speech tonight she kind of laid out exactly where she thinks this campaign is going to go from here. She's got two weeks now -- between now and the second round of these elections, May 7th, in order to prove her case to the French people. And basically she said that she's going to fight on prosperity, on the economy, she's going to -- talk again as she did throughout the campaign about immigration, about globalization, and about the European Union. So she has really run this campaign in a way that people were surprised that she did as well as she did and particularly that the mainstream parties did as poorly as they did. I think that's really the story here is the collapse of the mainstream parties. And in their absence, a vacuum has been filled by Macron, who is a centrist, and as you said never ran, never was in a political office or elected political office before in France and Marine Le Pen who has held political office but has never really come up to the level that she's at now. They're celebrating here still this evening and now after midnight, and the supporters here think this is a great victory that she came in second place. We'll see how she does two weeks from now. But it's going to be an uphill battle for them to put together enough votes to get her over 51 percent or over the 50 percent to be elected president.</s>CABRERA: Yes. Certainly it seems like a party there, Jim. I want to turn to David. People point out the similar philosophies of Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump, both are populist, both claim to reject the establishment. Le Pen calls them elite. Both take a hard line on immigration and Islamic terrorism. Is it fair to draw parallels between the two? And where is the distinction?</s>DAVID ANDELMAN, EDITOR-EMERITUS, WORLD POLICY JOURNAL: There is a certain parallel, there is a certain distinction. And globalization is a key element to the whole thing as Jim suggested before me. You know, it's interesting because listening to her speech tonight, her acceptance speech, if you will, she did talk about globalization and I think what it really means is that the next round is going to become a referendum on Frexit, that is to say the French version of Brexit, taking France out of the European Union, which is what she really wants. And many of the French people seem to be leaning more and more in that direction. In terms of Donald Trump, you know, Le Pen was a very strong supporter of Trump all along and he of her. In fact, Macron has lined up on the side of Obama. Obama has lined up on her side -- on his side. But it's interesting about Le Pen. She actually showed up in Trump Tower seven days before he was inaugurated as president. So they seem to have a real affinity of interests and so on. But after the attack on Syria, after the 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched by Trump on Syria, she blasted that. She said this is -- her fear is that this is a return to America's role as the gendarme of the world and that this is not a good thing. So, you know, this is a concern I think that many people will have in the future, will this work, Trump and Le Pen together?</s>CABRERA: And so, Jim, that leads me to ask you, what does that relationship look like between France and the rest of Europe and the United States for that matter depending on which of these two candidates wins when that final vote happens in a couple of weeks?</s>BITTERMANN: Well, the foreign policy adviser for Marine Le Pen told me this evening that they would like to have a very strong relationship with the United States, but the United States he's talking about is the United States of Donald Trump, not the previous administration. The other thing that's interesting, and David touched on it, there has been a close connection with Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump and but also with Vladimir Putin. Marine Le Pen and Russia have a relationship that goes back some years and includes the suggestion that's never been proven I think to 100 percent but that she took millions of dollars in Russian cash to help out her campaign. So there's also a parallel there that you might see developing in the United States as we learn more about Donald Trump's -- the financing of Donald Trump's campaign. In any case, the -- it's an interesting situation where you've got similar interests, similar ideas developing on both sides of the Atlantic. Whether that will lead to closeness or not, it certainly is going to lead to a difference in France that's going to amount to very close to the same thing as the difference you're starting to see in the United States.</s>CABRERA: David, conventional wisdom suggests Le Pen will lose I guess in the final vote, but the pollsters we know were wrong about Brexit and Donald Trump. Are you expecting a possible surprise here or is it pretty certain?</s>ANDELMAN: There are a lot of --</s>BITTERMANN: Yes, exactly right, Ana. I mean, in fact, this is going to be very --</s>ANDELMAN: It's interesting. We have --</s>CABRERA: Go ahead, David.</s>ANDELMAN: OK. I'm sorry. There are some forces here that are very interesting. You know, a lot of the Fillon -- Francois Fillon was the number three candidate, he threw his vote, his support tonight to -- Macron. But a lot of the more right-wing, center right, Fillon voters could very well go to Le Pen seeing her as a sort of safe haven if you will for some of the financial and economic issues that they find most important to them. So that is very important to understand. This is not by any means a done deal. And this is not something that the world or America should breathe easy on right now, now that we have Macron against Le Pen. Le Pen has a very strong hand to play and there are a lot of French people who may very well be happy to see that kind of a person occupying the Elysee at this point in its history.</s>CABRERA: Right, David Andelman and Jim Bittermann, our thanks to both of you. The Pentagon has a brand-new warning for North Korea tonight after the rogue nation detained an American citizen overnight and threatened to sink a U.S. aircraft carrier. A Pentagon spokesman warning North Korea to, quote, "refrain from provocative, destabilizing actions and rhetoric." The American who was detained in North Korea this weekend was attempting to fly out of the country. So let's talk more about this with CNN's Paula Hancocks in Seoul, South Korea. Paula, how is South Korea now reacting to the escalating tensions and news of a detained American?</s>PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, they're certainly watching this closely considering they also have a citizen who is still being held in North Korea. This is not the first time for an American to be detained in the country. What we know about this particular man, he's surname is Kim, a very popular surname in Korea. We know that he was detained as he was trying to board a plane in Pyongyang. And we know that he was a professor at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. Now that particular group has brought out a statement saying that they're unaware of what exactly this man is alleged to have done, but they do know that it was not related to the university itself. But as I say, there's also a South Korean who's a naturalized U.S. citizen, who was taken back in 2015. He was accused of espionage, sentenced to 10 years hard labor, and of course you have that 21-year- old student as well, Otto Warmbier, who in January of last year was condemned for taking -- allegedly taking a poster of a hotel wall and he has been sentenced to 15 years hard labor. So this is something we Americans take very, very seriously. The U.S. State Department has a warning to people not to travel to North Korea. It's not a ban at this point. It's just a recommendation. But certainly once again an American finding itself on the wrong side of North Korean law -- Ana.</s>CABRERA: Comes from the heels, Paula, of an American aid worker who was working in Egypt just being released there and Donald Trump apparently had a hand in that according to the White House spokesperson, Sean Spicer, yesterday, so -- I should say on Friday. So, Paula, do we think that North Korea is trying to send a message and trying to have some kind of leverage for negotiating with the U.S. through this maneuver?</s>HANCOCKS: Well, Ana, what we've seen in the past is that North Korea wants a high-profile delegate to come to Pyongyang, to try and lobby for the release of these prisoners. In the past we've had President Clinton going to Pyongyang to try and make sure that this happened. We've also had other high-profile visitors. So certainly this could be an element that North Korea is trying to increase its bargaining power, if you like. But of course we haven't heard very much from that student, Otto Warmbier, so this is confusing some experts that it shows that he's not actually being used as a bargaining chip at this point. And of course relations between Washington and Pyongyang could not be worse at this point. Tensions on the peninsula are particularly high. You have North Korea also threatening to strike and launch a strike against the USS Carl Vinson, which is doing military drills with Japanese destroyers at this point. So it's really not a good time for negotiation to even be considered but of course you don't know what's happening behind the scene -- Ana.</s>CABRERA: Of course. Paula Hancocks, reporting from Seoul, South Korea. Thank you. Fast forward now the next week for President Trump could be the most pivotal of his presidency. We'll look at his jam-packed agenda and the showdown with Congress that could decide the fate of our government. Plus the president has already made history with an unprecedented string of executive orders. But are these more about appearances than action? And Trump's predecessor is stepping out of the shadows and making his first appearance in public since leaving office. But will President Barack Obama hurt rather than help Democrats? You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.</s>BARACK OBAMA, 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Anyway, and Donald Trump is here.