00:00But first, the French Prime Minister is due to tender his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron.
00:18François Bayrou left with little choice after losing Monday's confidence vote in Parliament.
00:23Emmanuel Macron says he will be naming Bayrou's replacement in the next couple of days,
00:27but whoever steps into his shoes is likely to face a similar fate,
00:31with both the far left and far right here in France calling for fresh parliamentary elections.
00:40It's cheers to the government's downfall here in Pau, southwestern France.
00:44Residents are out in the streets celebrating the Prime Minister and Mayor of Pau, François Bayrou,
00:50losing a vote of confidence from MPs over the budget.
00:53Now he and all his government must resign.
00:55There are also calls for him to resign as mayor.
00:59François Bayrou is a man who does nothing, who has established himself and accumulated positions of power,
01:06resulting in severe austerity measures, declining purchasing power and widespread dissatisfaction with the system.
01:13In towns and cities all across France, there are parties to say bye-bye, Bayrou.
01:20People in the western city of Nantes are also out to blame President Emmanuel Macron for the political crisis.
01:26For them, he should have nominated a Prime Minister from the left,
01:29as it was a left-wing coalition that won the biggest share of seats in Parliament.
01:32It's long overdue for them to put in a Prime Minister from the left-wing alliance and it hasn't been done.
01:38Voilà , it's Macron who did not understand politics.
01:41Macron is searching for his fourth Prime Minister in a year,
01:45but he'll find it very difficult to build consensus for a replacement.
01:49After snap elections in summer 2024, the country's legislature is fragmented with no clear majority.
01:54Some in France are not celebrating the government's collapse.
01:58They're concerned by the deepening political crisis, which shows no signs of easing.
02:04I'm waiting to see what happens, if they manage to find someone.
02:07But in any case, I don't think it's a very useful decision
02:10and it brings more uncertainty than clarity to French politics today.
02:15The street parties are just ahead of Wednesday's mass protests called Block Everything.
02:20The broad anti-government campaign is calling for nationwide disruption.
02:24We can now bring in Nicholas Startan, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations
02:31at John Cabot University, Rome.
02:34Thank you so much for joining us on the programme today.
02:36Now, President Emmanuel Macron has this reputation for his inability to compromise.
02:41One can say, what are the chances he veers to the left when picking a replacement for François Bayhaut?
02:46It's certainly a possibility that he would veer to the left in searching for a replacement for Bayrou.
02:57There are certainly many people on the left who believe now is the time for the left to be represented
03:03in terms of who is prime minister.
03:06There's a possibility that he might go to the Socialist Party leader, Olivier Faure, as a possibility.
03:12The big problem that Macron faces, though, is not so much the choice of prime minister,
03:19but rather how is that prime minister going to obtain a majority within the French National Assembly?
03:29It's one thing to choose a prime minister, but the big problem is getting majority support in a parliament
03:37that is split in effect three ways between a kind of populist radical left, populist radical right,
03:44and Macron's groupings in the centre.
03:47How do you command a majority in these circumstances?
03:51You know, it was a heavy defeat, 364 to 194 for Bayrou.
03:59It's going to be a very, very challenging task, whoever takes over,
04:04in terms of coalition building for the next prime minister,
04:07whether it's somebody from the centre, somebody from the left,
04:10or somebody from the kind of more mainstream right.
04:13In the run-up to the last parliamentary polls last year,
04:18we saw the left wing come in and form this bloc, new popular front.
04:24They came out as the largest bloc once the results were known,
04:28but the president essentially went and picked someone from the Republican Party with Michel Barnier,
04:35then, of course, centre-right François Bayrou.
04:37Did that strategy from Emmanuel Macron effectively weaken the left-wing coalition,
04:43or did they do it all by themselves?
04:47Well, that's a very good question.
04:48I mean, I think, you know, that there have been some divisions amongst the left
04:51about the best way to handle the situation.
04:54There's certainly a rump within the Socialist Party that is more inclined to play ball
05:00with what's happening in terms of the central political perspective.
05:04I mean, you could say the problem started, really,
05:06when Macron decided to have those elections back in 2024.
05:10The whole sort of crisis in terms of this notion
05:14that it's some kind of existential political and economic crisis
05:18kind of stems, really, from that decision to have that election.
05:21It's become much more challenging on all sides for all perspectives.
05:25You know, let's put this into context.
05:27We've seen six prime ministers already in one-and-a-half terms of the French president.
05:34We have seen some very kind of able centrists come and go,
05:39unable to make a case, really, that it was long-term.
05:45And this notion of the budget is a massive thing for France at the moment.
05:49You know, we're in a situation where the country does have a 3.4 trillion euros debt,
05:54a big debt pile in terms of gross domestic product.
05:58And yet, you know, the French public do not seem convinced
06:02that this is necessarily a massive issue.
06:06You know, this could be a very, very difficult time for the president
06:11in the next few weeks, as I said to you before.
06:14Go on, sorry.
06:15Sorry, I just wanted to jump in there because, unsurprisingly,
06:18we have the far-right national rally who are calling for new parliamentary polls.
06:24That's what they say they are preparing for.
06:26Historically in France, there was this consensus amongst the political establishment
06:30to do everything to keep the far-right from power.
06:33But what Emmanuel Macron did last year by picking figures from the conservative right
06:40and then François Bayrou, he essentially gave the national rally a lot of power
06:46because they were needed to prop up the government.
06:49Is that a fair assessment?
06:51And is that what Macron's legacy is going to be, essentially,
06:55that he gave the far-right this clout here in France?
06:59Well, I think Macron's legacy could well be that he tried to set up centre politics in France,
07:07which has never been something that's been big, really, in the Fifth Republic.
07:11But the actual outcome of that is that he's given a lot of energy
07:17to the populist radical right, as represented by Le Pen,
07:21and also a lot of energy to the populist radical left, as represented by Mélenchon.
07:26But the other factor is that his kind of policy outlook and his perspectives
07:32have also weakened the traditional centre-left party,
07:36the Parti Socialiste, from where Macron emanates,
07:39and also the Republican Party is pretty weakened as well
07:43compared to where it was historically, the Gaulist Republican Party.
07:46And that's partly, I think, due to some of the own internal scandals
07:49they've had amongst key political actors.
07:51But the legacy, as you call it, of Macron could well be that his party
07:57does not really outlive him, and that at the same time
08:02he's weakened the centre-left Socialist,
08:04partly weakened the Republican right as well,
08:07and opened up a vacuum for the populist radical right
08:12and the populist radical left.
08:13You know, we've got presidential elections in 18 months' time in France,
08:17and the only two candidates that we really know are going to stand,
08:21well, it's either going to be Bardella,
08:23or if there's some kind of appeal, Le Pen on the right,
08:26it's probably going to be Mélenchon on the left.
08:29But nobody really has an idea who is going to stand in the centre
08:32as the presidential candidates.
08:34There are lots of people who are jockeying for it.
08:37None of them want to be Prime Minister,
08:38because that might not be a very good take at this stage.
08:41You know, French kind of mainstream parliamentary politics is in a mess,
08:45and that may well be the legacy of President Macron.
08:50And very briefly, will he go ahead and pick someone like Jehál Darmanat,
08:54who was the former interior minister here in France,
08:56knowing full well that Darmanat will have his eyes on the presidency
09:00two years down the line?
09:02Well, he may well try to pick certain people
09:05who've also got their eye on the presidency,
09:07but if I was a potential presidential candidate for 18 months' time,
09:12I don't think I'd necessarily want to be
09:14Macron's last Prime Minister of seven over a two-term period.
09:18I don't think it's going to help garner anybody's votes in that respect.
09:22So I think the big players are probably a little bit reticent
09:26about maybe becoming Prime Minister, those on the centre ground,
09:29because at the moment, the idea of trying to form a majority
09:33seems very, very complex, very, very challenging.
09:37And France needs this kind of budget to be kind of formulated.
09:41So, yeah, it's real unchartered territory.
09:44We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
09:45We've got this bloc en deux protest movement,
09:49grassroots movement, which has grown up online
09:52over the last months or so.
09:55This is, I think, leans to the left.
09:57It's not quite like the Gilets Jaunes,
09:59which I think is a little bit more spontaneous.
10:01We've got the trade unions calling for a day of action.
10:03We've got 80,000 police, 80,000 police about to be deployed
10:07across the country.
10:08Well, deploying 80,000 police across the country
10:10is not going to help reduce France's deficit,
10:12if you think about all the overtime.
10:14True.
10:15Interesting point, Nicola Startin.
10:16We're going to have to leave it there.
10:17Thank you for joining us on the programme today.
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