French politics: Macron seeks to create alliance, keep centrists in power
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00:00For some more analysis, we've got France 24 International Affairs Editor, Ketavan Gordjie-Sane
00:03here with us on set.
00:05Ketavan, Emmanuel Macron has now talked to nearly all of the political players here.
00:09Is there any sign that they have managed to move the needle for him towards finding a
00:14candidate that could garner support from a wide enough swath of the center to actually
00:18form a coalition to govern?
00:20It doesn't look like it, at least from what we've been hearing from some of the leaders
00:25who have come out of these meetings.
00:28And the fact is that Emmanuel Macron has two things he needs to do.
00:32And one is his public goal, which he has stated, which is that he wants to find a leader for
00:39the government, a prime minister, that would not be immediately censured by the rest of
00:44parliament.
00:45That is the sort of public cover.
00:48But of course, what he is trying to do also is that while putting out that threat of a
00:54being censured by the rest of parliament, he is trying slowly to increase what is his
01:00centrist alliance to try to convince some on the right and also peel off possibly some
01:06of the socialists from the new popular front to try to garner as many people as possible
01:12to create a majority that could survive that possible censure, at least see other parties
01:21sort of abstain from censuring it.
01:24And so this is really what he's trying to do, whether that is successful right now.
01:29It doesn't seem like it because none of the parties or the alliances that are in play
01:35right now seem to be willing to budge.
01:38You have, of course, the far right and their allies who have basically said that they would
01:43probably censure any form of government that involves any type of left-leaning ministers
01:50or prime ministers.
01:52And then you have the new popular front, this broad alliance of left-wing movements that
01:58goes from the socialists to the Greens, all the way to France Unbowed.
02:04And they also have been saying that they feel they are number one in, even though they don't
02:11have an absolute majority, they are the number one alliance, that they should be the ones
02:15to have a chance at governing and that they have a candidate, Lucie Castel.
02:21And so she should be allowed to form a government.
02:25And we heard in what Marine Le Pen said that there's also a question of timing because,
02:30of course, if the government were to be formed right now, the parliament is not in session,
02:36meaning that the parliament cannot censure that government.
02:40That means whoever would be in power for the next month or so would be allowed sort of
02:46rule by decree and they could undo some of what President Emmanuel Macron has done so
02:51far.
02:52So that could also be coming into the calculation.
02:54Interesting.
02:55Now, on the leftward side there, as you were saying, La France Insoumise, unpalatable to
03:03the far right, as well as to many on the right and center right.
03:07Their leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has offered to withdraw any members of his party from
03:12an eventual government, a cabinet of ministers.
03:15If Macron accepts their candidate, the new Popular Front, Lucie Castel as prime minister,
03:19do you think that's made any difference?
03:22Has it moved Macron at all?
03:23Well, it doesn't seem to have made any difference, but it does seem to have at least brought
03:29out into a public view what some were hinting at, which is that the problem for Macron's
03:38centrist alliance, the problem for the right, the problem for the far right about this government
03:45by Lucie Castel is not necessarily the actual individual ministers from France Insoumise.
03:52It is the program, because most of these parties have come out saying, we don't want that deal.
03:57It doesn't matter.
03:58She would be someone who is coming from France Insoumise and she would be someone who would
04:03impose the program of the new Popular Front.
04:08So it doesn't really matter whether you have members of LFE, of France Insoumise.
04:14That is at least what some of the other parties who are opposed to that deal are saying.
04:21And the new Popular Front and LFE, France Insoumise themselves, are saying, you see,
04:29we are showing you right now that the problem was not with our ministers.
04:33The problem is that they don't want a program that a majority of French people voted for
04:39because they gave us the most seats.
04:41So everybody is sort of twisting and spinning these deals and these responses in their favor.
04:51But what it doesn't do is it doesn't bring any sort of conclusion.
04:55Nobody seems to be agreeing.
04:57It's even looking like it's possibly dividing within the new Popular Front, because as Jean-Luc
05:04Mélenchon was presenting the sort of casté prime minister for no LFE members in the government
05:10deal, he was also threatening the president with destitution, which is something that
05:15didn't sit well with a lot of the socialist party, saying that he was basically angering
05:23and pushing Macron even further to the limit instead of trying to find a compromise with
05:29the president.
05:30So not sure that this is working out well for anyone right now.
05:34Indeed.
05:35And it must be said that Macron has a pretty packed schedule coming up.
05:41He's about to leave the country in a couple of days.
05:42We've got the Paralympics starting.
05:43All this while the French budget is due in a few very short weeks.
05:48The clock is ticking here for him.
05:49Absolutely.
05:50Because right now we've already been 41 days with this caretaker government.
05:56And as you said, Paralympics opening ceremony starts on Wednesday.
06:01Then you have that trip to Serbia Thursday, Friday.
06:04Then there's the weekend, of course.
06:06And so the clock is ticking because that budget, that is important, because the parliament
06:12comes back in session officially unless Marine Le Pen gets what she asked for.
06:17But the normal session would start on October 1st, which is when that budget needs to be
06:22ready to be put in front of the parliament.
06:25And for that budget to be ready on October 1st, it doesn't mean that it can be brought
06:29on September 30th.
06:31It has to be ready a couple of weeks before that, because there are several hurdles that
06:35need to be passed before it is presented.
06:37They might want to read it.
06:39They might want to read it.
06:40It's thousands of pages long.
06:42So that takes time.
06:43It's not something that you can do in a couple of days.
06:45So as long as you don't have a actual government, you have a caretaker right now.
06:51So that government would have to present that budget, would have to go through all this.
06:55So a lot of weeks is not what we have.
06:59We have basically a couple, three weeks maybe.
07:02So you need to have a response.
07:05And Eric Ciotti, who is now the president of a party who is a little bit divided, if
07:12you will.
07:13He's the right wing, but has allied himself with the far right.
07:16He just came out of his own talks with the president.
07:19He seemed to be hinting at the possibility of having a new round of talks next week to
07:26figure out something.
07:28And he was asked whether we could possibly have the name of a prime minister.
07:31He said, definitely not today.
07:34So maybe a few more days, but Emmanuel Macron cannot go on like this for several weeks.
07:40Maybe next week, but that is already pushing the limit on that clock.
07:44The clock is ticking here and the pressure is mounting here in France.
07:49Ketavan Gordistani, France 24 international affairs editor.
07:51Thanks so much for that analysis.