00:00We begin here in France where the Prime Minister today submitted his resignation to President
00:05Emmanuel Macron. Francois Beirut stepping down after losing a confidence vote in Parliament
00:10yesterday evening. The President is now expected to name a replacement within the next few days,
00:16but whoever takes over is likely to face the same challenges, with the far right calling for new
00:21parliamentary elections, while the far left is calling for Macron's resignation. Let's cross
00:27now to Antonia Kerrigan, who's at the National Assembly. Antonia, what's the latest where you are?
00:37Well, just 10 minutes ago, Francois Beirut left the Elysee Palace after an hour and 20 minutes
00:45of an audience with the President in which he attended his resignation. He left the building
00:51a caretaker prime minister whose remit is now limited to emergency decisions and ensuring
00:57the continuity of the state. That's pending the appointment of his replacement. Now,
01:03rumours are gaining momentum around one name in particular for the premiership. That's
01:09Sébastien Lecornu. He, in the current outgoing cabinet, is outgoing minister for the army.
01:16And he has been a minister in successive cabinets under Emmanuel Macron since 2017. This would be a
01:25case of Emmanuel Macron choosing yet another prime minister from his own political camp. And so it
01:31would in many ways raise as many questions as it would answer in terms of, well, how will he command a
01:38majority in Parliament where others have failed? What's for sure as well is that that name has been
01:44mooted before to then not be appointed for the premiership. So we should take rumours with
01:50caution. What we can say, though, is the outgoing interior minister spoke this morning, impressing
01:58what he considered the urgency and importance for a new prime minister to be chosen very, very soon
02:04as France prepares to weather a new protest movement.
02:08And talking about that protest movement, Antonia, obviously, the president is very much aware of
02:15what's been planned for tomorrow. So how is that going to factor into what happens in the days ahead?
02:26Well, we're seeing a great deal of rhetoric from the outgoing cabinet about the importance,
02:32certainly the right of the outgoing cabinet about the importance of policing and the importance of law
02:38and order. And that's being considered as a factor in the urgency. And it could be a factor in the
02:43leaning of who is appointed next. What I can say about the protest movement is that it seems to be fairly
02:50grassroots, fairly disparate in the organisation. A lot of the organisation has been happening online
02:56through channels such as Telegram. Plans include roadblocks, cutting off major thoroughfares into
03:03the capital, major strikes on railways and plans to bring refineries to a standstill and potentially
03:11even prolong those actions in order to cause a nationwide fuel petrol shortage. Now, only 100,000
03:20participants are expected according to the outgoing Interior Ministry, but 80,000 police have been laid on.
03:28So it's a fairly high police to participant ratio. And the police are under orders to break up any roadblocks
03:35on major arterial roads, which could lead to quite high tensions between protesters and police. Once again,
03:43it remains to be seen whether President Macron will be weathering this storm with or without.
03:49A Prime Minister and a government.
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