French PM Sebastien Lecornu struggles to form new governement

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00:00Well, turning here in France now, it's been nearly a month since Sébastien Lecornu became

00:05prime minister, and he is still yet to name a cabinet. The French premier is now expected to

00:10do so anywhere between Sunday night and Monday morning local time, but a series of recurring

00:15tensions then amongst the ruling coalition's allies, as well as questions surrounding which

00:20parties will be represented in the cabinet are rumored to be causing new delays. For more,

00:24we're going to speak now to Renaud Foucault, senior lecturer in economics at Lancaster

00:29University. Thanks, as always, for joining us today, Renaud. So the right-wing Republican

00:34Party, which only got about 7 percent of the vote in last year's legislative elections,

00:38delayed a meeting that they were supposed to have yesterday until today, reportedly in part

00:43over the fact that the shortlist of cabinet members could include people like hardline

00:48interior minister Bruno Routaio, amongst others. This right-wing party has been upping the pressure

00:53on Lecornu, but with such a small percentage of the vote, why do they continue to wield

00:57so much influence?

01:00That's French discovering parliamentary democracy, is it? They discovered that to get a majority,

01:05anybody who is pivotal can, in theory, exert maximum power, unless as the central bloc, you

01:11can diversify your allies. And this is the trick that Bayrou tried to pull by having a little

01:17bit of support from the far right and a little bit of support from the social democrat, but

01:21failed. And now Lecornu seemed to be in a position where Le Pen, despite getting some special top job

01:27last week, thanks to the help of Macron's party, Le Pen has decided to be out of the coalition. And so

01:34the only way Lecornu can succeed is by having at least Les Républicains and the social democrats to

01:40abstain. Les Républicains have been very clear. They are only in power if they can get maximum leverage in

01:47terms of visibility. So what they really care about is having people like Retailu visibly

01:52incarnating law and order. And I guess their hope is that if Bardella is candidate for the Rassemblement

01:58National, he might fall apart because he's just, you know, a 30-year-old who never had a job and he

02:02might fall apart if he's actually on the spotlight. And so they really want to have this position.

02:07They will fight for that. And the social democrats, they will fight to get some visibility in terms of

02:11policy because at the moment they are doing quite well in the polls, but they are doing quite well by

02:16walking this tightrope of getting concessions from the government, while at the same time being

02:22visibly angry and in opposition and as a form of alternative.

02:27Now, meanwhile, Renaud, members of the far-left France unbowed party have already said that a motion of

02:32no confidence is essentially inevitable. What, if anything, could Lecornu do at this stage to avoid this

02:40possibility, in your view?

02:43What he's doing right now is the least courageous, the most simple, mild version of an agreement he could

02:51do. So I think he's doing the absolute maximum. So the reason why both Bayrou and Barnier failed

02:56is because they tried to reduce the deficit and they tried to reduce the deficit by touching the pension.

03:02If you look at the document that Lecornu is sending today again to the parties of his majority,

03:07he's saying the only specific number he's giving is we're going to increase pension spending by 6

03:12billion, we're going to increase healthcare spending by 5 billion. So for the rest, he's

03:17telling to the left, we're going to increase tax on the wealthy and we're going to decrease tax on

03:22the working class. And to the right, he has very tailored words about law and order, migration,

03:29etc. So he's paying lip service and I think also really policy to get some kind of wild

03:36agreements. But the problem is that we're getting closer to 2027. And so everyone is joking for

03:42position for the presidential election. And so to get through, you need to give the impression to

03:47both the social democrats and to Les Républicains that it is in their best interest for two years'

03:53time to be supporting him.

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