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Lyn O'Donnell
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first
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Announcer
broadcast on 24 February 2026 on Monocle
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Andrew Muller
Radio, the fourth anniversary of the last time it looked like Russia's invasion of Ukraine was going to plan. France's far left aspire wistfully to the mainstream respectability of France's far right. And why don't Koreans want to eat lunch with their colleagues? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts.
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Announcer
Foreign.
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Andrew Muller
Welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Lyn o' Donnell and Philippe Malia will discuss the day's big stories. And we'll look ahead to the San Remo festival, which begins tonight. Verily, Eurovision is almost upon us. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily.
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Announcer
Foreign.
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Andrew Muller
This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Lyn o', Donnell, columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, and by Philippe Malia, professor of French and European politics at University College London. Hello to you both. Hello there, Lyn. Possibly for the last time, you're leaving us. I mean, not the daily personal. I hope it's not been us that has driven you to the other side of the world. But that is where you are going.
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Lyn O'Donnell
That is. That's right. I'm going to Australia, which is to
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Andrew Muller
say, obviously, as newcomers to the program may already have guessed from your accent, Back to Australia.
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Lyn O'Donnell
Back to Australia, yeah.
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Andrew Muller
What are you planning to do upon arrival?
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Lyn O'Donnell
Well, I'm flying from London to Brisbane, getting into a car after 22 hours of travelling, which is going to be a danger to most people, including myself, and driving to Byron Bay, which, as you know, is haven of hippies and billionaires.
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Andrew Muller
Yeah. The only way I would have said to being driven to Byron Bay would be tied up in the boot.
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Lyn O'Donnell
We can organise that.
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Andrew Muller
But you are going there. But not to live.
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Lyn O'Donnell
No, not to live. I'm going to be cat sitting for a friend of mine called Alex. Shout out because she's a Monocle listener.
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Andrew Muller
Hi, Alex.
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Lyn O'Donnell
And then I'm going to go to Melbourne and settle back in my hometown.
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Andrew Muller
Well, you will be missed by our listeners, I am sure, but hopefully we can speak to you from there about things and so forth at any time. Philippe, pertinent to an item we will be discussing, you are going to be shortly voyaging once again to the national rally Heartlands.
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Philippe Marliere
Yes, absolutely. And I guess a less sunny and pleasant area than yours in Australia. It's Northern France, it's a post industrial area with a working class area. And interestingly, I'm a political scientist. It's a place we used to be for over a century, a bastion of the left of municipal socialism and the far right. National Rally won the town hall 10 years ago and since then they, they grow from strength to strength and I think they are expected to win the election again. So writing up a book about National Rally and I've taken that place as a case study. So it will be a good place to assess the mood at the moment in France.
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Andrew Muller
Well, we will have more on that mood in France shortly, but we will start in Ukraine. Four years ago today, Ukraine was on the receiving end of the largest military assault seen in Europe Since World War II as Russia launched what was supposed to be a 72 hour lightning strike to seize Kyiv and depose President Volodymyr Zelensky. Four years later, Zelenskyy remains President of Ukraine. And Russia has advanced little beyond the lines it had already established at a cost of at least 1 million casualties. In a spectacular and probably unintentionally comedic understatement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has today said that the goals of what Russia still calls the special military operation have, quote, not been fully achieved yet. A phrase the captain of RMS Titanic might well have used with reference to its maiden CR crossing of the Atlantic. More from our panel shortly. But first, this monocle's Europe editor at large Ed Stocker spoke a short while ago to Odile Renault Brasso, President of the European bank for Reconstruction and Development.
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Odile Renobrasso
It's a challenge and when we look at the return and the risk, it's not obvious. But as a public development bank, I think it's part of our mandate to do that. And we got the support of our shareholders, either in the form of a capital increase that give us some buffer, financial buffer in order to be able to absorb this risk and some guarantees that allows us to finance some clients that we could not finance without this extra, extra support.
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Andrew Muller
But I know also there is, you know, this potential positive outcome in the sense were war to end, it could be a real growth engine for Europe. You talked about risks there. Do you think that were the war to finish, that would go away completely and you know, Ukraine could be this very positive growth engine for Europe and actually be an excellent investment?
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Odile Renobrasso
Yes, of course Ukraine has a lot of potential, first of all in agribusiness. I mean this is, I mean the natural environment is very positive and big capacity in this sector, but also in the tech sector, which has always been quite strong in Ukraine, and now with the link between tech and defense, it's amazing to see how the potential in this area has grown. Last part, manufacturing, of course, Ukraine has always been strong in manufacturing. So I think that a country with a lot of potential that is building up some very strong tech capacities in the defense, really developing the technologies that are needed for the war of today, and that will be very important for NATO, for Europe in the coming years, with the objective to EU accession, which will drive some reform, because to be able to access eu, you will have a lot of reforms to be implemented and so forth, that is likely to transform, that should transform the country fundamentally. And when you look at the success story of Poland, for example, which was at the same level of GDP than Ukraine in the early 90s, now it's five times bigger than Ukraine. I think Ukraine has a capacity with the right reform agenda, the right driving force of the perspective of EU accession and so forth, to become a new
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Andrew Muller
Poland in a way that was Odile Renobrasso, president of the European bank for Reconstruction and Development, speaking to Monocle's Ed Stocker. Philippe first of all, I mean, it's reconstruction and development in terms of Ukraine. We're not quite at the point yet, are we, at which those are things we can plan for?
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Philippe Marliere
Yes, absolutely. That's exactly what I was thinking about while listening to this clip, this interview. I think one has to defeat the invader, the aggressor first. And I think the aggressor is Russia, who launched that unjustified attack on Ukraine four years ago. Four years, that's really a very long time. And there are no signs of an ending at the moment. It is very clear that Russia doesn't want to end that war, at least until they haven't met their objective, whatever they might be. It's not very clear, probably taking over the territories of Donbas. The least we can say about the American President, Donald Trump, his initiatives haven't been helpful, to say the least. And also now the next point is the lack of total unity in Europe within the EU and with sort of usual suspect Hungary blocking, apparently a sort of a new loan package and also dragging its feet regarding a sort of new round of sanctions. So of course it's not helping either. And it's always, of course, Europe is there, but it's always too little, too slowly. And I think the thing probably Europe should understand is the defense of Ukraine, military defense, economic defense, is justified, I think on moral and political grounds, but also it's a question now, really, for Europe to defend itself by defending Ukraine, to defend itself, because I'm really struck by the number of high commanders in various European militaries saying publicly now that there are high risk of a war between Russia and European countries. So, yes, I think it's about time now to put an end to the war and to. Absolutely. To restore sovereignty, full sovereignty in Ukraine.
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Andrew Muller
But on that thought, Lyn, and the idea of putting an end to the war with that full sovereignty. Philip mentions talking there about that would be Ukraine, including the Donbas and Crimea. We've got four years of hindsight to draw on. Is that something that could actually have been done if Ukraine had just been given everything it wanted when it wanted it?
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Lyn O'Donnell
Well, my feeling is that Russia, Putin is not the only party to this war that has dragged its heels and dragged it out. I don't think there was any. If we, you know, try and recall what the atmosphere was like four years ago, I don't think there was any doubt about Putin's intentions.
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Andrew Muller
No.
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Lyn O'Donnell
And, you know, 2014 was the annexation of Ukrainian territory.
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Odile Renobrasso
Indeed.
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Lyn O'Donnell
And so, yeah, I kind of think that if there hasn't been a denial in the room, there has certainly been a denial for public consumption and for the generals now to be talking about, oh, goodness me, making intellectual breakthroughs. You know, we are in danger of a war. You know, commentators and people with their eyes open and have been saying that for 12 years.
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Andrew Muller
Indeed they have. But Philippe is there. I think it's fair to say, first of all, that we should acknowledge what an extraordinary feat Ukraine has accomplished. I don't think there were many people, and I would not have accounted myself among them, who four years ago would have assumed that both President Zelenskyy and Ukraine would still be standing four years hence. But is there, from where we are now, an imaginable end to this inside the next year? I have not met a ser Russia analyst yet who thinks that Russia wants this war to stop and therefore this war will continue, won't it?
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Philippe Marliere
I am no military expert, but it seems to me now we've reached a point that in order really to stop the war, one needs to defeat militarily, Russia, at least to make it stop, because the cost of war for Russia would become unbearable. And this should be unbearable now because you mentioned in your introduction over 1 million Russians men were killed in the battle, and also half a million, at least on the Ukrainian part. But I think Putin is an autocrat, so he can get away with that by recruiting those youngsters. In some remote areas of Russia, in Siberia or else. And no democracy could do that, of course. So that's really the problem. That's why economic embargo, of course, in my view, should be stricter. Of course, the arguments against them saying they're not having a real impact. But I think the military issue, you know, if Putin can carry on, I think he will carry on. So I'm not saying we're going to be there in 10 years time, but that could carry on for a while, unfortunately.
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Andrew Muller
And just finally on this, the same sort of question to you, Lyn. Does Europe now appear to be relying on the idea that at some point there will just be this catastrophic unravelling of Russia morale and the Russian lines? Is everybody basically hoping against hope for some sort of 1917 scenario, living in
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Lyn O'Donnell
a fantasy world, you mean? You know, it's all very well to have sanctions, but sanctions only work if they're global. And we have Iran and China and India buying boatloads of Russian oil. And apparently the oil, the oil income is higher now than it was more than four years ago. So there has to be a reality check. You know, Hungary, as we, you know, Philippe mentioned before, is a fly in the ointment and undermining any propensity or any, you know, view that the EU is united in any way and it suffers from what a lot of multilateral organizations do, including NATO, in that everybody has to agree to whatever policy is on the table, and if you have one, in this case, Orban defaulting, then nothing's going to work. And this is what Putin is relying on. I think that, you know, he's gone to North Korea. There's still a lot of countries left where people need jobs and need to feed their families and will take 100 bucks a month to, you know, pick up an AK47 and shoot it in that direction. You know, that's happened in insurgencies and wars forever. So I, I think there's, you know, there's a lot left in this yet.
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Andrew Muller
Well, to France, which this time next year will be, along with the wider Western alliance, in the advanced stages of its quinquennial angst at the prospect of the LSE palace being delivered to a Le Pen or a Le Pen proxy. The Le Pen family firm, the former National Front, now trading as National Rally, has attempted in recent years to clean its image up, but remains widely regarded as untouchable by parties who prefer to think of themselves as respectable. However, the odium may be shifting leftwards in the wake of the Murder earlier this month of Quentin de Ronc, a Lyon student of far right sympathies who was beaten to death at a protest. Many of those arrested have links to an outlawed far left organisation which itself has ties to France Unbowed, the party led by veteran blowhard and perennial presidential candidate Jean Luc Melanchon. Philippe, give. Give us some idea, first of all, how big a deal this killing has been in France.
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Philippe Marliere
It's a very big story in France. I think it made all the headlines and it's been in the news for the past 10 days. The reason being, first of all, is the incident itself. A very dramatic, violent incident. Two groups of youngsters getting involved in a street fight, very violent one, leading to the death of one 23 year old student, an activist militant on the far right. A point about Lyon, it didn't happen there, so it wasn't a random thing. Lyon has been a bastion of far right politics for the past 20 years. So it happened there and it happens against another group, so far right activists, against antifascists or antifa activists, that is far left activists. So you could say, well, those things happen, it's dramatic, it's terrible, we condemn it. But I think where the plot thickens is that the people involved, some of the people involved on the anti fascist side, at least a couple of them, were salaried. A parliamentary assistant to an MP for the France and Belle party, which is today one of the many, if not the main left wing party in France. And the MP in question is no other than the founder of that antifascist group called the Young Guard, which was dissolved, by the way, a few months ago. So, you know, the plot keeps thickening, so all sounds a little bit dodgy, illegal. So hence the outcry, of course. And then there's another substory which is of course the far right has seized the occasion here to mount a very strong campaign against the far left, against the anti fascists, renamed fascists. The antifascists are the new fascists, the anti fascists are the new neo Nazis. And of course it's a complete reversal of norms of roles given, as you know, the history of France, where we had this collaboration regime, Vichy regime, fascist, and there was French resistance, anti fascist. And the resistance at the time in France were on the Socialist, communist and Gaulist side, not the far right. So there's no difference. But there's an attempt, if you like, of what historians called at revisionism, you know, to revise history and to not pretend that the far right would be the sort of the defender of democracy against the left and the far left. So it is very confusing for lots of people. And I think, of course it's part of the process of de demonization. De demonization of the far right in France, which now for the first time might make it eligible at a major election in a year time. For the first time. You know, I've been asked the same question for the past 20 years by journalists. Can the far right win a presidential election? I've always replied no, but I think this time around, yes, in a year time they could make it.
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Andrew Muller
Lyn, that far right clearly do see some sort of opportunity here in this, the death of this young man, Jordan Bardea, who may well be the National Rally's candidate for president. If Maureen Lee Le Pen rather is precluded by her legal difficulties. He has accused Jean Luc Melanchon of having moral and political responsibility for this murder. Is there actually anything to that? I mean, do we really hold political leaders, whatever we think of them, personally responsible for the worst excesses of their followers or is this just bad faith bun throwing?
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Lyn O'Donnell
I think it's just an indication of how polarized politics has become in recent years where what was once extreme is normalised and so the ultra extreme just becomes the extreme and the parameters narrow. So as Philippe was saying, it's quite possible that the far right will be finding favour at the, at the ballot box simply because the alternatives are extreme, you know, so now if we define the extreme as the ultra extreme, the extreme is okay, you know, I mean,
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Andrew Muller
Philippe, does this stick to Melanchon, do you think? Because obviously you can see what the national rally in Bardea are doing on the one hand, nationally have kept away from memorial demonstrations because I think they probably don't want to involve themselves in anything that turns violent. Right. They think they have the moral high ground here, but are they going to be able to keep it?
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Philippe Marliere
Well, Melanchon's reaction, and I think he seems to be sticking to it, was to stay put and, and defend his mp, former founder of the Young Guard, this anti fascist group. He didn't extend his defense to the people involved in the murder, however, that has also sort of made sort of enhance, if you like, the unease and the outcry in general. I think the unease on the part of the moderate left, and I agree with you, polarization and France is getting more and more polarized, leaves no space to so called moderates on the left and on the right. And now the prospects are that there could be a second round, a decisive second round of the presidential election between Jean Luc Merchant and Jordan Bardela. The reason that the political field in France is so fragmented, all the moderate forces, starting with Macron's party, the Social Democrats on the center left and what left of the Republicans, the main right wing party, are so weak and fragmented that Melanchon could make it to the second round. So of course, such a choice. Imagine for a majority of voters, one neither on the far left nor on the far right. How can you. What kind of vote could you make on the day? So, yes, the French society has got very polarized. Melanchon is staying put and I think he's not going to lose his support. It's about a core of about 10% of voters who are very radicalized. They tend to be young, they tend to be very mobilized around certain issues such as Gaza and Palestine, and he will not lose them because in fact, they seem to go along that kind of radicalization.
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Andrew Muller
Well, to the recently concluded Winter Olympics in Milano, Cortina and a seamless cross promotional reminder that all 10 episodes of Monocle in Milan, which we broadcast from the host city, may be found on our website, some featuring various Olympic grandees. Anyway, it says here that these Games were quite the ratings smasheroo, especially in the United States, clobbering the results of the preceding Games in Beijing by a margin of nearly 2 to 1. Unsurprising hits were the twin U.S. victories over Canada in the men's and women's ice hockey. Lyn, first of all, I have been doing a bit of mathematics with the metal table, and if you adjust for the proportion of competitor country to the amount of snow that country has, I believe three gold, two silver and one bronze for Australia make us the real table toppers.
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Lyn O'Donnell
Yes, that seems fair.
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Andrew Muller
I worked on that for some time. It's one silver more than Team GB got, which I think is actually the most important.
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Philippe Marliere
Absolutely no snow in Australia, then you can.
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Andrew Muller
There is snow in Australia. Hence our excellence as Winter Olympians. Philippe. And with the amount of snow France has, you should be ashamed. Relatively meager.
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Philippe Marliere
It's underwhelming.
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Andrew Muller
Lynne, were you actually watching?
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Lyn O'Donnell
I did watch some of it. I caught a glimpse of one medal winner looking very pleased with himself. But he had braces. All the winners were teenagers. It's only teenagers who have the level of braveness, courage, to lie on a piece of fiberglass and go headfirst downhill at a very great rate. It's insane.
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Andrew Muller
I did write a piece, Philippe, about this for our website before the Games, outlining My belief that the Winter Olympics are better than the Summer Olympics and it is because they're more dangerous. All these people are total maniacs.
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Philippe Marliere
I agree. I think most of the winter sports around skiing and sliding are extreme dangerous.
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Andrew Muller
That's something.
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Philippe Marliere
And particularly if you practice that in a competitive way. Yes, I think probably it's part of the thing, which makes it quite extraordinary. But I think the success of the Olympics, to get back to the initial point, I think it's probably because a bit of a bread and circus, people want a bit of entertainment. I think the word is gloomy enough at the moment, probably. So I think that explains why we all tuned in and we switched on and we watched it. And I think they were epic games and fantastic things. And I like the skiing, I like the hockey games and I still prefer the Summer Olympics, but nonetheless, I think they were very welcome at this time. And it was a form of entertainment and evasion which I. Which I enjoyed.
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Andrew Muller
Well, elaborating on that thought, Lynn, is. Is there something to it? Because I. I think probably the single performance that attracted the most global attention was Elisa Lou's extraordinary free skate routine in the. The women's figure skating, which won her the gold for the United States. And more than one person remarked upon the fact that it was just. She just seemed to be having a really good time. She actually looked like she was enjoying herself, which I think a lot of people in that particular discipline that the training regimes of which are famously brutal tend not to. But she just looked like she was having a total blast.
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Lyn O'Donnell
But I think athletes at that level do rise to the occasion, no matter what the occasion is. And I think the viewing figures, to get back to the original point, are all about the strategy that the broadcaster has adopted. NBC or Peacock see sports as the way of drawing in viewers. And I think their strategy behind it. They had 2,600 people working on the Olympics broadcast, 1600 of them at their headquarters in Connecticut and 1,000 of them on the ground in Italy. And that sort of effort and the money that they spend on it, I think the pressure for a return worked out for them. And I think that sports are increasingly becoming the money earners, the chief money earners for major broadcasters and the Olympics, you know, they put on a show
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Andrew Muller
and it worked out well to South Korea. Now, where it says here, office workers appear increasingly of the view that they spend enough time with their colleagues as it is. The traditional all in communal cafeteria lunch is being disdained, if not outright shunned, in favour of pre packaged Meals still served in the company eatery, but available at more flexible times, allowing those consuming to avoid inane conversations about that local sports team and having to feign interest in anybody's Instagram pictures and spend the time instead searching for a new job, somewhere they can stand the sight of their colleagues. Philippe first of all, journalists obviously, such as Lyn and myself, generally only have lunch with other people if they're paying. What is it like in academia? Do the professors all get together somewhere on campus and have lunch together?
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Philippe Marliere
They are, I'm afraid, no perks in academia you have to pay for your own food when you eat, including in college. Always very disappointing and I think it's very sad. But when I was sort of reading about this story about South Korean workers eating alone, I think it's a little bit of story of my colleagues and myself, I would say, I think when I started my career I tended to invite or be invited by colleagues just to have even in a cafeteria lunch. Because then you would socialize, you would speak with your colleagues, you would bit of gossiping, a bit of exchange of ideas, and I would be very good indeed. And now, I don't know, probably it's a change in working patterns. You tend to do exactly what South Koreans seem to have started doing, which is buying the prepackaged food and salad. And you eat that miserably sometimes in your office, which is really, really bad. And you stop seeing sometimes colleagues. So that's, I think, a very bad thing. There was a book I used in one of my modules by American political scientist Robert Putnam. The title was Bowling Alone. It's the collapse and revival of American community. It was showing that people were stopped going to bowl with their friends and they were bowling alone. And there was a sign of a broken community, a like a decline in socialization. And just a similar story, I read in a French press this week that there was also a decline sign of the dinner, traditional dinner among friends. You know, French are quite keen of having those long multi course meals with lots of wine and a very intense conversation. It seems also to be in decline, which is also a sign, I don't know, people are busy people, the cost and it's very bad. And just the last point, a scientific study I read on France. Cafes and bistros are closing and when they do close, particularly in small communities that lead politically to of the far right, you see decline in socialization, people being left alone. They don't because cafes of course are an excellent place to people and have a chat.
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Andrew Muller
Lyn, It's a point Philip raises there, that there is a. There's a business argument in favor of the communal lunch, which is that in a more informal setting, ideas do get had. And we do have an area here at Midori House in which staff often lunch together. And Lord knows, at the foreign desk, we have pinched entire shows from passing conversations or remarks made by colleagues. It does kind of work out well.
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Lyn O'Donnell
That's why autocratic regimes don't like people gathering in coffee shops. Like the Chinese, for instance. The tea shop culture was killed by the communists because people got together and eventually after a bit of chat about, you know, the neighbourhood got around to saying, and what about this government then? And I will add a point though, that you may have been taken out for lunch by people who were paying. But I only got taken out when I was paying on my expense account.
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Andrew Muller
Well, that's the same thing, really. That is a distinction without a difference. Lyn o' Donnell and Philip Marliere, thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's show, tonight is the first night of the San Remo Music Festival. Italians the world over, but mostly in Italy, will be gathered round their televisions to witness this annual behemoth of competitive singing. But it isn't all music and lyrics. This year as every year, San Remo is as much about the political and cultural controversy that the competition courts. But who or what is the object of such attention this year? Monocle's Lily Austin tells all.
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Announcer
The San Remo Music Festival, Italy's most important cultural event of the year and longest running annual music competition. Each year around 30 established artists, Campioni and a handful of emerging acts, Nuova Proposte compete for the honour of winning the Golden Lion Trophy, national stardom and the opportunity to represent Italy at Eurovision. Under the rules of the competition, each performer must showcase a new song. So please don't expect to hear this one tonight. You'll be gravely disappointed. Oli's Balado Nostalgia was last year's winning entry, but it gives you a flavour of what one can expect. There is also a covers night where competitors perform a popular classic with a well known guest, but more about that later. Over the preceding five nights, Italy will be gripped by the events of San Remo. Last year's viewing figures peaked at 17.4 million, an astronomical figure in today's linear TV adverse world. Trump may as well take a mini break. As far as Italy is concerned, nothing else will be breaking through the cultural discourse whilst this competition is underway. Now, you may be thinking a week long competition dedicated to the art of music and lyrics which enthralls the whole of Italy. How charming. How wholesome. Well, think again. A cultural juggernaut such as San Remo is liable to be swept up in politics, and this year is no exception. Enter Federico Leonardo Lucia, better known as FedEx, the rapper, singer, songwriter who until recently was one half of Italian social media's most influential couple and darlings of the left. His marriage to designer Chiara Fox Fergani fell apart in early 2024 in the midst of a major scandal relating to Christmas cake. In case you've missed this particular controversy, the so called Pandora Gate, Fagani was accused of fraud for marketing a Pandora cake, the classic Italian dessert served at Christmas as a fundraiser for children's hospitals, whilst actually pocketing the bottom profits. She was fined 1 million euros, but last year was cleared of the more severe charge of fraud, deftly swerving a prison sentence. Before Pandora Gate, the couple were famous for supporting progressive causes, often in direct opposition to Prime Minister Meloni's Brothers of Italy. The PM wasted no time in calling out Fagani when Pandora gave came to light and even introduced a bill now dubbed the Fagani Law, which directly targets influencers suspected of misleading their fan base with glitzy marketing promotions. So back to FedEx. The dissolve of his marriage seems to have also prompted the dissolve of his values, as the rapper has since made an evident lurch to the right, appearing alongside right wing figures and attending the youth club congress of the conservative Forza Italia party. Then last year, San Remo's festival arrived fed its first public appearance since Pandora Gate. During the aforementioned covers night, gasps were drawn as FedEx was accompanied on stage by Marco Mazzini, a musician well known for being bad luck luck, the kiss of death for any jobbing performer in Italy. Mazzini's other claim to fame is for recording a millennial anthem. Millennials have been doing their best to forget Bella Stronza, most accurately translated as Beautiful Bitch. The partly autobiographical ballad is told from the perspective of a man embittered towards his ex girlfriend, which at the time in 1994 and since has drawn on criticism for its profanity, sexism, and apparent condemnation of sexual assault. In 2020, Mazzini explained that Bella Stranza was a product of its time and not something that he would ever write today. So you can imagine everyone's surprised last year when he took to the San Remo stage to give the song a new lease of life. Ferdet's choice of partner seemed like a cynical play for attention, an apparent statement about his ex wife and rage bait intended to spark the fires of the culture wars with alacrity. And boy, did the audience at home, who make up 50% of the votes, lap it up. FedEx came in fourth place with his single Batito. This year FedEx returns to make another play for the top spot, but he isn't allowed alone. Marco Mazzini will be returning with him. The duet are competing with a song called Male Necessario, meaning Necessary Evil. Given the rule that all San Remo entries must be completely brand new and never performed before, we can only speculate on what the song is about. But how fed it spares this week may give us some indication about the power of reactionary figures within Italy's cultural landscape. Lessons seem to have been learned from the rise of the far right in the U.S. even if, like FedEx, your commodity is music rather than politics. Nothing cuts through quite like divisiveness.
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Andrew Muller
Thank you, Lily. And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Lyn o' Donnell and Philippe Mali. Today's show was produced by Tom Webb and researched by Anneliese Maynard. Our sound engineer was Elliot Greenfield. I' Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.