French PM's job on line with call for confidence vote

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00Next, here in France, the Prime Minister held a news conference today on the government's

00:05upcoming budget.

00:06François Béroux is seeking to boost support for the unpopular plan, which aims to slash

00:11more than 44 billion euros in public spending.

00:14The Prime Minister says he will seek a no-confidence vote from Parliament on September 8th, while

00:19political parties on the left have called for a nationwide strike two days later on September

00:2410th.

00:24Well, let's take a listen then to the Prime Minister speaking earlier.

00:27Our country is in danger because we are on the edge of over-indebtedness.

00:36Over the past two decades, despite the succession of several governments of different political

00:40leanings, our national debt has increased by 2 trillion euros.

00:51France cannot ignore this danger.

00:53It cannot stand idly by.

00:55It is heading for disaster if it does not take the courageous but still possible and

01:00bearable decisions that are necessary and that we are debating.

01:04Well, our senior reporter Catherine Norris-Trendt has been following that for us and fills us

01:12in on the details.

01:18French Prime Minister François Béroux put his neck on the line just as France is coming

01:23back from its annual summer break.

01:26He scheduled a special session of Parliament and a vote of confidence in his government

01:31for the 8th of September, centred around his controversial budget plans.

01:38Béroux hopes to make 44 billion euros of savings in the French budget plans, which would include

01:47scrapping two public holidays, freezing pension and welfare payments and really limiting government

01:53spending pretty much across the board.

01:56Well, he announced those measures in the summer, his plans for those measures, and they went

02:01down like a lead balloon.

02:02So there had been plans for protests and strikes as France got back to work this September.

02:09So he's trying to get in ahead of that by calling this confidence vote, but it already seems

02:14that the parliamentary arithmetic could be very tricky for him and his government to survive.

02:19Parties on the far right and on the far left already saying that they will not support him

02:26in this confidence vote.

02:28François Béroux had been trying to reach out to the French public directly in this speech,

02:34saying that the situation was so serious when it came to public debt that something

02:39had to be done about it now.

02:41He said that financing the public debt was the single biggest line in the French budget,

02:47that it cost 66 billion euros this year, and that every hour that passes, France is accumulating

02:5512 million euros of debt.

02:58So he's really calling on French politicians to act responsibly.

03:02Whether they will back him in this confidence vote, that's another issue.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended