Can France's new government overcome its economic and political challenges?

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe speaks to Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, a French journalist and commentator, about the country's new government cabinet and the work that is cut out for it.

Transcript

00:00I'm pleased to say that Anne-Elisabeth Moutet is a French journalist and commentator who joins us now.

00:05Anne-Elisabeth, France's fourth government this year then and bitter political conflict

00:11throughout Parliament. What chance does this government have under Baruch?

00:17I would not be too optimistic except that there might be a kind of political exhaustion

00:23and people have seen so many changes and each time was more stressful than the previous one.

00:30But at the same time you have members of a coalition or at least an array of representatives

00:39party which is a little bit wider than Michel Barnier because it's got several former members

00:44of the Socialist Party, non-current members of the Socialist Party, so that the idea was

00:50to have people from the centre, from the republican right and to have people from

00:57the sort of moderate left which means the Socialist Party but not the alliance that

01:03won about one third of the seats and which is led by La France Insoumise, the hard left party of

01:09Jean-Luc Mélenchon. This is a lot of strange names but what it means is that the hard left have

01:15immediately said that this government would base a vote of no confidence the minute they

01:21tried to pass a law which is really a problem because the budget is still not through

01:26and because the left demands together with the hard right of Marine Le Pen

01:33the reform or a change of the law making French pensions slightly less generous than they were

01:42before and that means that after the holidays anything goes and it's really going to be up to

01:49François Béroud, a man who's 73 years old who started in politics in the 70s and who has less

01:56charisma and certainly less foreign experience, international experience than Michel Barnier,

02:03the former European Commissioner and Brexit negotiator, so I'm not optimistic for this

02:09government. Okay and you mentioned some of those interesting appointments there but would you say

02:15that perhaps President Macron himself faces some problems from public sentiment?

02:22President Macron is deeply unpopular, he doesn't want to cope with it, he's very unhappy about it,

02:28he takes it very personally and unfortunately some of it is directed personally. He has been

02:34seen for seven years, he was elected in 1922, next year is going to be eighth anniversary of

02:41the time he got to power, he was re-elected once, he can't run again and he has been a lame duck

02:48president with ever worse returns. I would say since the 2018 yellow vest crisis there's a

02:56feeling of remoteness, there's a feeling of contempt for the general public, there's a

03:02sort of lecturing style that does not work but he doesn't change it and we saw this only recently

03:08in the hurricane hit island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean when Macron went there to be with

03:16the people who had lost their homes, had lost members of the families and he was

03:22filmed lecturing people because they disagreed with him. It's not a good look and I think

03:28essentially he does not want to resign yet, he cannot call another snap election like he did

03:34last year because there has to be an interval of one year between two snap elections called by

03:41the president and therefore he's stuck, he's between a rock and a hard place on this one.

03:45Yeah definitely, so he also has to deal with the budget in 2025 as well and Elizabeth Moutet, we

03:51would love to talk about this more, we're out of time but French journalist and commentator

03:56thank you very much for your time.

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