00:00Now, not far from the Élysée Palace, the French Prime Minister is making last-ditch attempts to avoid his government from being voted out.
00:07François Bayrou quoting the Socialist Party, whose leader has reiterated that they will not be voting for the government on Monday.
00:16France staring a political crisis in the face as the confidence vote draws closer.
00:21For more on the story, we can go across to Antonio Kerrigan standing by at the Prime Minister's office.
00:26Antonia, good afternoon. The Socialists essentially went to this meeting with the Prime Minister.
00:31They say as a courtesy, did anything come out of it?
00:38Well, as you say, they said they were attending as a courtesy.
00:41They emerged from the meeting as adamant as they had been before and throughout the last few weeks,
00:46adamant that they won't be bailing out François Bayrou and his government at Monday's no confidence vote.
00:53And what it kind of looked like from where we were standing is that they used today's meeting in Matignon,
00:58in the Prime Ministerial residence, as something of a photo opportunity to talk about their manifesto.
01:04They emerged from the meeting saying that they had talked to François Bayrou about their vision for government,
01:09about what they think the budget should look like.
01:12While François Bayrou is pushing to make €44 billion worth of savings through budget cuts,
01:17they were pushing a programme that involves only €21 billion worth of savings,
01:23a large amount they hope to make through a new tax on the most wealthy French citizens,
01:29and certain public services they are anxious to protect in a new budget.
01:34Now, of course, this budget could be blue sky thinking,
01:37it could be a thought experiment we'll forget about in a matter of days.
01:40But the reason why they're talking it up so much right now, of course,
01:44is that they see Monday's vote of confidence against François Bayrou as a foregone conclusion.
01:49They're already preparing for what comes next,
01:52and they're angling for President Macron to call on them to form the next government as of Tuesday.
01:57OK, so everyone seems to be positioning themselves to take control of the government.
02:01But I just want to ask, can François Bayrou achieve some sort of Hail Mary between now and Monday
02:07and essentially keep his job and his government intact?
02:13Well, it looks like he might have run out of rope short of a miracle.
02:17He attempted to make a gesture, a goodwill gesture, if you will, to the far right the other day
02:21by announcing that he was going to tighten up the spending on state medical aid for undocumented migrants.
02:28He threw the far right a bone there, hoping that would bring them somewhat back into the fold.
02:32But their position is unchanged as they're rubbing their hands together,
02:36hoping to bring him down on Monday and then hoping for an immediate dissolution of Parliament
02:41and then general elections in the aftermath, which they expect they could win.
02:45The left is firm on voting, no confidence on him.
02:48It seems like any chance for Riggle room there has more or less disappeared.
02:53He had suggested there could be room for concessions on the plan to cancel two public holidays,
02:58although he was only offering that for anyone who could find somewhere else to cut those four billion euros.
03:05So it doesn't look like he's given himself a huge amount of margin.
03:08It looks like what he tried to offer the far right hasn't won him anything.
03:12And it looks like the left, as they have always been, they say that confidence was breached some time ago.
03:18So it seems like a foregone conclusion Monday.
03:21What, of course, isn't clear is what happens next.
03:23Will Parliament be dissolved?
03:25Will President Macron look to appoint a new prime minister for a new government immediately afterwards?
03:30Who knows?
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