00:00We can speak more on this with Renaud Foucault, who is a senior lecturer at Lancaster University.
00:06He joins us now. Thank you so much for joining us on the programme, Renaud.
00:10So earlier today, we had François Bayrou seeming to suggest that his most controversial proposal,
00:16perhaps that idea of scrapping those two bank holidays, that it's still up for negotiations.
00:22Do you think that he would scrap that? And do you think that will help to convince parties to come on his side?
00:30I think it was part of the initial idea of Bayrou, was to make a very big visual proposal
00:35and immediately to say everything is open to negotiation.
00:39So clearly, scraping those two days of a holiday was never going to happen.
00:44I'm pretty sure he's willing to consider that, but his idea was always to say,
00:48but then if you cancel one of my measures, you need to offer something else in terms of savings for the budget.
00:55So is it going to be enough to convince partners? I think it's very hard.
00:59Because what he has to do to convince the socialists is likely to lose him, the right-wing Le RĂ©publicain.
01:07And there is no majority without having at least those two, or Le RĂ©publicain and the Rassemblement National,
01:13which is what Barnier tried.
01:14So I think we're kind of towards the end of the journey here.
01:17They've tried the right and the far right with Barnier.
01:21They've tried Bayrou, which has the right with him and the outside abstention from the social democrats.
01:26No, I think the last or all of the dice would be to try to have the social democrats in government,
01:32with some abstention from the right-wing, which seems to me quite far-fetched.
01:37It's a really tough situation that France is facing at the moment.
01:41Emmanuel Macron has urged Bayrou to try to work with the socialists, as we've been mentioning.
01:47He hasn't made any concessions yet, though.
01:49How do you think he will look to bring them on side?
01:53I think the first thing he wants to give them is responsibilities.
01:56So having a prime minister with someone really directly coming from the Socialist Party.
02:02But the second thing he would need to offer them is something that corresponds to their own programme.
02:07And at the moment, the socialists are still in a posture of opposition.
02:11So they are not themselves responsible for the budget.
02:14They are not the ones who need to bring the 6% of GDP deficit down.
02:17So they suggest we're going to do a top 2% tax on the highest capital honours,
02:25which is something technically very difficult because you need to value capital.
02:29But that's a bit of a complicated question.
02:31But this is something that is totally, anyway, unacceptable for the right-wing and for most of the centre.
02:37So I really think that somehow at the end of the road, the only option would be new elections.
02:42But if you look at the polls, the new election would give almost exactly the same result as last time.
02:47If the left somehow managed to remain united, and if the left, as is also possible, breaks out completely,
02:54the alternative is Bardella and Rassemblement National Government,
02:58which is something that I think even Bardella doesn't want because they don't want to be in charge of the deficit right now,
03:04so close to the election.
03:05It really seems that Macron is kind of out of options here.
03:10As you mentioned, if they do hold an election, it's likely to have the same outcome.
03:15Well, likely, the new prime minister would be likely to face many of the same problems.
03:19Give us an idea of what Macron can do to solve this situation.
03:23The big problem, I think, is a lack of sense of a reality of what parliamentary democracy is in every single political party in France.
03:35So the mistake of Macron originally was to say, I can ignore the results,
03:40and I'm going to push my centrist government, although we're like one-third of the parliament.
03:44But the problem of the others is that they've put a large amount of red lines.
03:48So the socialists say we are only joining if we can tax capital massively.
03:52Rassemblement National say we only want our program,
03:55and even when you give it to them, they just basically want to be in a position.
03:58So the problem really at the moment is red line.
04:00And perhaps one thing that could be a solution for Macron is if there is a new election,
04:07is to let people talk a little bit before the election about what they could do.
04:12But the problem remains, I think, the same in some way,
04:14is that there is a big presidential election coming,
04:17which is the only thing that ambitious French politicians care about.
04:22And so who would be responsible enough to cut the deficit right now and to take tough decisions like that?
04:28That's also why, by the way, I think, I still believe,
04:31it's very hard for me to give zero chance of survival to Bairou.
04:35I think Bairou is an ideal person as prime minister right now,
04:39both for the left and for the right and far right,
04:41because he's the one who is an old man, is boring, nobody likes him,
04:45and he's willing to take all the difficult decisions.
04:48So if he somehow managed to squeeze, to wiggle his way towards a budget this year,
04:53this means that the life of all the others would be so much easier.
04:57And so it doesn't take that much.
04:59It takes a few abstentions, a few people who don't show up.
05:02People don't have to vote for Bairou.
05:03The way the French constitution works, they don't need to have people in favor of Bairou.
05:07They just need to have not too many people against Bairou.
05:10And so if I were Macron, I would still bet on Bairou, but I think he gave up already.
05:15It seems like everyone's given up at this point.
05:18I mean, the fall looks very much...
05:19I'm the last one.
05:20You're the last one keeping hope.
05:22There's so much chaos now.
05:24I mean, looking at the situation and the idea that we could have a new prime minister coming in,
05:29it just feels chaotic.
05:31Who is to blame for all of this?
05:33Well, really, I think who is to blame is the lack of political maturity of every single of the political party.
05:41So at the end, after the snap election, I think it's quite clear that the first group of party was the left.
05:47The left, which was a large group from MĂ©lenchon to the Social Democrats.
05:52But they said, we are going to have a prime minister, but we don't want to make any concession.
05:56We're going to do our full program.
05:57So that was never going to happen.
05:59It will not happen in Germany, it will not happen in Spain, any parliamentary democracy.
06:03You need to build a coalition and you need to have a majority, at least, who doesn't want to censor you.
06:08Then who is to blame?
06:09Of course, the arrogance of Emmanuel Macron.
06:11We know that all the time he tries to say, I am above the fray, I'm the one making all the decisions.
06:16And so he chose at the beginning, after a victory of the left, to name Barnier's prime minister,
06:22who was a guy very close to the Rassemblement National.
06:24You can, of course, blame the Rassemblement National for not trying to be the reasonable far-right Ă la Meloni,
06:31who is willing to somehow stop being super radical, at least on budget issues, and to make some form of coalition.
06:39But generally speaking, really, a complete lack of maturity of political parties in France,
06:44who are simply not ready for the reality of the country, which is there are three blocks,
06:48the far-right, the centre, and the left, each of them as one-third of the parliament,
06:53and they need to find a deal, the two of them.
06:55It's very simple.
06:57Every adult country with a parliamentary democracy does it.
07:00France needs to learn, and it will have to learn the hard way, I'm afraid.
07:04We'll have to see how it all plays out on Monday.
07:06Thank you so much for joining us on the programme.
07:08Really good to talk to you and get your insights today.
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