Macron urges broad coalition to break French political deadlock
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00:00Now, nobody won. Those are the written words from France's President Emmanuel Macron.
00:05His first comments on the weekend's elections here that have left three main blocs in Parliament.
00:10Macron putting the responsibility on Parliament to negotiate a broad coalition, as he put it,
00:15reflecting France's Republican institutions to break the stalemate.
00:20The left crying a foul though, as they are the biggest bloc in the Parliament.
00:26It has now been three days since the results of the elections were announced
00:32and no one has been called upon to form a government.
00:37There's no sign of any willingness to provide the beginning of a response to the situation.
00:44Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon there.
00:46Well, Emmanuel Macron are now at the NATO summit, of course.
00:49There's attention elsewhere from those elections,
00:51but it's unlikely there's going to be any major changes in the situation here in France,
00:55for several days at least.
00:57We're going to discuss the latest with our international affairs editor, Philip Tell.
01:00Philip, so the French elections, a subject of discussion amongst NATO members, perhaps?
01:05What have they said?
01:06I think that there is a huge amount of relief amongst the NATO members
01:11that Marine Le Pen, the National Rally, Jordan Bardella is not the Prime Minister of France
01:17and that there was a victory for the left and the far left in the legislative elections last weekend.
01:21So probably some back slapping going on to Emmanuel Macron,
01:24relief that he has been not confronted with the idea of ruling with the far right.
01:30But there is definitely a feeling that this is just a situation that's been kicked into the long grass
01:35and it all could come back in just a year or in three years' time in 2027
01:39when the next presidential elections are scheduled here in France.
01:42And if it were held today, Marine Le Pen would certainly come first in the first round of voting.
01:47It's a sort of reprieve, I think.
01:49But there's been a lot of pressure on the French president
01:51even not to go to this NATO summit to sort out the problems here in France.
01:55I think he's gone for a couple of reasons.
01:57First one is to get away from all the shenanigans and horse trading going on in this country
02:02and all the criticism that he's been facing since calling these early elections.
02:06And secondly, to show that he is still the man in command,
02:10he's still Emmanuel Macron, the head of state, the head of one of Europe's most powerful nations,
02:16the head of a NATO country, a nuclear force as well,
02:19a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
02:21All that is important.
02:22So he's gone there to underline the importance of France on the world stage.
02:26But those problems are going to come back to haunt him when he gets home again
02:30after this whistle-stop tour to Washington.
02:32He's only there for 36 hours and they won't have gone away when he gets back.
02:37Let's talk a little bit more about this letter that he's written to the French people.
02:41He's keeping his prime minister for now anyway, isn't he, Gabriel Attal?
02:45And this letter is supposed to kind of set out a way forward?
02:48Well, they said it was published in the local press yesterday
02:52and on the local radio network called France Bleu here in France
02:56about five o'clock yesterday afternoon,
02:58basically ruling out from Emmanuel Macron's perspective
03:03any chance that he may agree to rule with either the far right,
03:08that's pretty much out of the picture now,
03:11or with the far left, the France Unbowed Party of Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon,
03:14which is one of the four components of this new popular alliance
03:18along with the communists, with the socialists and with the Greens.
03:21That has caused ructions within the left-wing alliance,
03:25particularly because they have been saying,
03:28well, we're only going to govern with all four parties together.
03:32We're not going to give in to Emmanuel Macron's whims and requests
03:35because he is in a position of weakness right now.
03:38So it's either the programme of the left or no programme at all.
03:42Then in the middle you have Emmanuel Macron's group,
03:45which came second in the elections,
03:48saying, well, what we need is a government of national unity.
03:50You can't rule the whole country when there was no specific winner,
03:54which is what Emmanuel Macron has been saying
03:56because no one got an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
03:59You can't run the country with just a programme from the left.
04:02You need a general programme which is going to appease everybody.
04:06So that is where we are right now.
04:08The horse trading is going on.
04:10All the meetings are still continuing between the left-wing alliance,
04:13the four parties over who could possibly be prime minister.
04:16There doesn't seem to be anything coming out of that for the moment.
04:19But it is a very complicated situation for the French.
04:24And this is what Emmanuel Macron has been saying, basically,
04:27what the French have voted for, the Republican Front,
04:29the political forces must now put into effect.
04:32It is once this has been done,
04:34and according to French Republican principles,
04:36that I will choose a new prime minister.
04:38What the president is doing here is buying time,
04:40buying time for himself because he knows this is not going to be easy.
04:44And the other problem that Emmanuel Macron is looking at
04:46that is not easy is, well, we have the Olympic Games coming up.
04:49We don't want political instability during the Olympics.
04:52It's better if Gabrielle Attal, the current prime minister,
04:54stays in office for the time being.
04:56We'll worry about a change of government afterwards.
04:58And all, of course, this angering the left.
05:00You say, well, they came out top overall in these elections,
05:03so it should be up to them where the country goes
05:06and who the prime minister is.
05:07So who are the candidates?
05:08OK, well, there's a couple of candidates, I think,
05:10who are out of the picture already.
05:11One of them is Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon,
05:13the head of the France Unbowed, the far-left party.
05:15I think he is definitely not in the running.
05:18He's seen as being too conflictual
05:20and too much of a caricature, scarce, of French, basically.
05:23There's also François Hollande, the former president,
05:25difficult to see who he, him being prime minister
05:29with the man who succeeded him in the Élysée Palace.
05:32That probably wouldn't go down too well.
05:34There's Marine Tendelier of the Green Party.
05:36She's seen as a compromised candidate
05:38who's up there with a chance.
05:40Clementine Houtin from formerly the France Unbowed Party,
05:43she's left that now and wants to devote herself
05:46to the new Republican front.
05:49She is seen as someone who's a less divisive character
05:55in French politics than Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon,
05:57whom she was a big supporter of.
05:59There's also Clémence Guetta,
06:00who was Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon's chief of programme
06:05for the elections.
06:07She is also one of the favourites within the France Unbowed.
06:10Pretty unlikely, I think, that she will get the job now.
06:12Olivier Faure, the head of the Socialist Party,
06:14he said he's ready to do the job,
06:17as has Boris Vallot, who's also from the Socialist Party.
06:21He's the head of the Socialist Group in the National Assembly.
06:23So those are all the candidates.
06:25One other person who was thought maybe
06:28who could be a possible Prime Minister
06:30is GĂ©rard Larcher, the head of the Senate,
06:32but he's been on French television this morning
06:34saying he is definitely ruling that out
06:36and very critical about Emmanuel Macron
06:38for dissolving the National Assembly
06:39and causing all these political problems
06:41when he really didn't need to do that
06:42because his party could have stayed in power
06:44for another three years
06:45before the next elections are scheduled.
06:48So many candidates, not one obvious.
06:50Should we say within the next couple of days
06:53or the next week, I think, who they finally agree on,
06:55if they do agree on someone?
06:57On the left side, you mean?
06:58On the left.
06:59Yes, exactly.
07:00As I said, even more complicated
07:01once you start looking at the whole Parliament.
07:03Thanks very much, Philip.
07:04Philip Taylor, international affairs editor
07:06here on France 24.