05:03and that was quite surprising to many because there was the thought that perhaps Macron might
05:07pick someone more from the left to appease this movement.
05:10But what does Lecornu's appointment tell you?
05:12Yeah, there's several things that are surprising in this.
05:16But there's the timing, for instance, why would Macron go so fast to nominate a prime minister
05:21while, in fact, he could have used, you know, the sort of, like, disappearance of a previous one
05:26as a fuse, you know, to sort of dissipate, you know, the tension.
05:29I mean, at least he could have hoped for that.
05:31So that I find a bit striking.
05:33What I also find striking is that the prime minister he just nominated,
05:37as you said, you know, hails from the Conservative Party in France.
05:41And in terms of arithmetics, it just doesn't add up, you know, no matter how skilled the
05:47new prime minister is, and I don't know anything about that, I would be very surprised that he
05:52managed to do, you know, better than what the previous prime minister, who was actually
05:57supposed to be a man from the centre, a man of consensus, you know, didn't manage to do.
06:02So it may very well be the case that the same causes will have the same consequences and that
06:08we're going to be in the same place, you know, in the next few months.
06:10A reminder to those who may not be following French politics so closely, this is all a
06:15symptom of that political gamble that he took about two years ago now, I think.
06:20It was last year, yeah.
06:21Last year.
06:22And he called a snap election to try to rout the extreme right who'd done very well in
06:28the European Union elections.
06:31Yeah, yeah.
06:31And has that now left the National Assembly effectively ungovernable?
06:35Well, I mean, that's what he says.
06:37And to a certain extent, you know, there's a bit of truth to the fact that it's a bit
06:40harder.
06:41You know, France has a long tradition of having a parliamentary system where the majority gets,
06:47you know, a lot of power.
06:48And if it doesn't get enough power, you know, there's a lot of tools that can be used, you
06:51know, in order to sort of domesticate, basically, the parliamentarian.
06:58So in that sense, you know, France is not a classic parliamentarian system.
07:01And that, you know, became a bit harder, you know, in 2022, when Macron was reelected,
07:08there was a, you know, parliamentary election, and he didn't have an absolute majority, a
07:12complete majority.
07:13So he was forced to use some of his tools, which are unpopular.
07:16And he was also, you know, forced sometimes to, yeah, make consensus.
07:22And so he called that snap election in order to gain again a majority.
07:27But he failed, and he got, you know, even way less.
07:30And now, France is in a situation where there's basically three blocks, you know, in parliament.
07:36And our institutions may be designed to handle that pretty well.
07:40But the political culture at the moment is not ready to accommodate that.
07:45And so that's why we've been bouncing between different prime ministers, in fact, four, you
07:49know, in just four years.
07:50Now, looking at French politics, what's his position like?
07:55Is he going to be forced into a position where he's going to have to call an early presidential
07:58election?
07:59He's insisted himself that he's going to serve out his entire term.
08:02But will it be, if there's too much turmoil, will it be left up to him?
08:06Yeah, I mean, there's several options.
08:07One option is that he calls again a snap election, because he has the power to do that again.
08:12There's always one euro flag in between snap elections from the president's side.
08:15So that's one option.
08:16He could do that.
08:18But it's quite unlikely that his side is going to gain, you know, anything.
08:22To the contrary, they are actually, you know, pretty low in the polls.
08:26So I'd be surprised that this happened.
08:29Another thing that he could do is actually leave office.
08:32And we would, you know, that would call for, you know, earlier presidential election.
08:36That doesn't seem to be in the cards.
08:39So that doesn't leave him, you know, in terms of classic political coordinates, a lot of leeway.
08:44What he could try to do is, in fact, you know, to try to modify the rules of the game and changing, you know, some constitutional parameters.
08:53So moving from, you know, first past the post system to a proportional system, you know, introducing a bit more of deliberative democracy, referenda, votations, etc.
09:04Which is what, in fact, you know, the people in the streets are asking for.
09:08You know, there's a claimer for having more of a say, you know, to the political lives and so and futures.
09:15And so that could actually be.
09:17But that also doesn't seem to be part of Emmanuel Macron's, you know, political agenda.
09:21And looking at the movement itself, it's going to start this block on to from tomorrow.
09:26And then a week later, the the airline towers striking as well is going to be huge disruptions.
09:33What are they hoping to achieve?
09:34And is this a lot different from the gilets jaunes that we saw in previous years?
09:39It's pretty hard to say at the moment.
09:40You know, I think there's a serious number of people tomorrow who are going to go out and protest,
09:49hoping to garner enough support so that people, you know, join them and that they create a sort of snowball effect.
09:56And unions are on the line for that.
09:59Some of them, you know, called for a mobilization day tomorrow, but most of them did not.
10:05They also called together for another one in a week from now.
10:09So I guess everything is very much up in the air tomorrow.
10:15I'd be surprised, you know, that the same pattern than what happened with the gilets jaunes, the yellow vest happens,
10:22because first, tomorrow is a Wednesday and it may sound very trivial, but you don't get the same population, the same demographic,
10:30whether you demonstrate on a Wednesday and on a Saturday and the gilets jaunes were on a Saturday.
10:36Also, I guess, you know, the police forces are much more ready this time.
10:40And so I would not be surprised that there is a sort of strong suppression of anything tomorrow on the side of the police.
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