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00:00The political quagmire here in France has just become a little bit deeper and more sticky this Monday.
00:05Under pressure to appoint a new Prime Minister, the French President Emmanuel Macron met with the lead faces, there they are,
00:11of the far right, Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella.
00:14They both said they wouldn't work with a leader of the government who'd been appointed from the political left.
00:20Now it's worth pointing out Le Pen's national rally polled third place in July's decisive second round of the legislative elections in France.
00:27The new popular front, or the united left, finished top.
00:31The key thing is though, there was no overall majority.
00:37Another busy day for the French President, who has hosted a string of party leaders at the Elysée since Friday,
00:43in hopes of finding a candidate for Prime Minister that would not immediately be toppled in a confidence vote.
00:50But that is exactly what the far right's Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella said they planned on doing.
00:56If the candidate and the government came from the left-wing new popular front.
01:01So we've asked for an extraordinary session to be opened so that the Prime Minister, whoever it is, can appear before the National Assembly.
01:10The new popular front and its programme, movement and figures that personify it today represents a danger.
01:16We will defend the country from a government that will divide French society.
01:22A position also expressed by some of Emmanuel Macron's allies and the leader of the conservative Les Républicains party.
01:30Any Prime Minister from one of the four parties of the new popular front will be subject to an immediate no confidence vote by the MPs in my group.
01:39The National Assembly is largely split between three blocks, with none close to a majority.
01:45But as the largest of the three, the left-wing new popular front argues that it should form the government.
01:50It has asked Macron to consider 37-year-old economist and civil servant Lucie Castaix as head of government.
01:58We therefore ask that the new popular front government be allowed to work, to set up a budget exercise and then to leave it to the French people to judge.
02:08Over the weekend, as a compromise, hard-left France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said that the government would not have to include his party members, a key objection of the right and centre.
02:19The pressure is mounting on Macron, who has now left the caretaker government in place for an unprecedented period, and with the deadline to present a draft 2025 budget just over a month away.
02:31A penny for his thoughts is what you might say as that report by Emmanuel Macron ends.
02:35And here for your analysis in the studio we're joined by Hind Zian, founder and CEO of Génération Politique Hind.
02:42French politics appears to be eating itself right now, is that a fair assessment?
02:46I think it is a fair assessment. We're at a very critical point in French politics.
02:51The past few days, the past few weeks have been pretty strange, I would say, to all French people and also to international observers.
02:59I think a lot of us are just expecting a lot of instability, a lot of hardships and difficulty.
03:06But it seems like the president still wants to take his time to get us to a stable government.
03:12And the question is, can we really get to that stable government?
03:15Because the National Assembly is so divided and it's been so ever since the last elections.
03:20Can we get there? That's the big question for me.
03:23The left group finished top after the second round of the legislative elections.
03:27The third place national rally, the far right, are saying they won't work with someone from the left.
03:32How can they say that? That's the question I'm asking myself.
03:36So yeah, the question here for me is that it looks like everybody's in it for himself or for themselves.
03:41It's like, I'm not going to vote for him. We're going to sign a no confidence vote or a motion of no confidence.
03:49And so it just feels like we have had those elections that were extremely unexpected for everybody.
03:57And then we're at a point where, and I think it's fair to say it, we're at a sort of something that looks like a mess.
04:05And so what I think is also interesting is to look back at the other points in our history where we've had a situation that's similar to the one that we have today.
04:15So we've had three big situations in 86, in 97, and I believe I forgot the third date, but we've had three of them, you know.
04:25And it's just that today it looks like it's going to be difficult to have either side.
04:31It's going to be difficult to govern either way for the next year.
04:34And the French constitution says that you can't have, you can't dissolve parliament another time before next year.
04:41So I don't really see any other option here for the president or for President Macron other than just getting by for a year,
04:51hoping that there's not too much instability and hoping for better days to come after a year.
04:57You mentioned the constitution. People are clinging to that.
05:00When the results of the legislative elections came in on July the 7th, people were talking about Macron now being a lame duck president.
05:08Canard boiteux is the phrase in French.
05:11It's funny how it's now looking like the whole system is the lame duck and there's the president trying to basically wring his hands and find a way ahead.
05:18Do you think Macron in some way is, I'll say it, do you think he's enjoying what's going on?
05:24Do you think he's actually getting some kind of sense of satisfaction out of it?
05:27Is he a winner of what's happening? Part of it is. But I would say, yes, part of it.
05:33But I would say that the biggest loser is France itself, because if you look at the way politics is working out today,
05:42if you look at the way institutions are working today, it's just a display of of utter mess to the French people, French people.
05:53And we've worked about this a lot on the ground who already are extremely defiant of French politics, of French politicians.
06:00So I think maybe part of him, because he's a politician and he's been doing this for some time, part of him is thinking, OK, I want to win this.
06:09And I have those adversaries and I have those enemies in politics and I want to win against them.
06:14But the question for me is more like, who's the loser here? And the loser is probably the country and the French people.
06:21And from the way you look at politics, I mean, clearly there will be some people who will feel more and more disillusioned about what they're seeing.
06:28And I'm thinking maybe young voters or those about to sort of turn of the age when they can vote.
06:33They'll look at the system and think, hang on a minute. What's the point? This isn't for me. This is just chaos.
06:38Absolutely. Absolutely. I think young people, there's a lot of young people who are very disengaged, who are very.
06:44There's a lot of apathy about politics, especially here in France.
06:48It's it's just insane to think that there's a whole new generation that can be just a driving force for politics,
06:54that can really help politicians change the way we do politics and be closer to citizens, closer to people and really delivering with a lot of efficiency of government led efficiency.
07:04But we're not getting there because there's just so much, so much disillusionment and young people.
07:11But just, you know, people in general are just kind of sick of the general atmosphere of the general environment.
07:16But this is true for France, but also for a lot of Western democracies.
07:20So I think we also have to ask ourselves the question is, do we want to get there?
07:25Do we want to go to a point where it's just like nobody, nobody cares about politics or at least nobody.
07:31Everybody is so disappointed in it that they're not doing anything actively for for, you know, the political, political sphere, the city that we all share together.
07:41So it's it's extremely saddening for the future, but I think there are solutions.
07:46There can be solutions. I just hope that our political leaders are going to take that path for the next coming.
07:52I mean, the next days and the next months and years.
07:54I said at the start of this, a penny for the thoughts of President Macron or a some team.
07:58Maybe we could, you know, sort of try to get inside his head.
08:01What do you think he's going to be thinking? I mean, once upon a time, after the first round of the legislative elections, one thought there was going to be a far right government.
08:08That was erased as an idea by the banding together of the parties to block that, which is a traditional French move to keep the far right out of power.
08:17That philosophy going way back to the Second World War when France was under Nazi occupation.
08:21So that's the little history lesson. Let's get right up to date now and think about what Macron can do next.
08:26What would it be? But is he going to just basically sweat this out, maybe just appoint his own man?
08:31Would we see Attal prolonged as prime minister, do you think?
08:34I think he is. I honestly think the country needs a government as soon as we can and he can get us one.
08:43But I believe that part of it is really also about him stating to all his political adversaries that he's the guy, he's the leader.
08:52And the fact is also that in France, under the French constitution, today's 1958 constitution, while he is the one who calls the shots and that we've been seeing this for a couple of weeks now, for a couple of days now.
09:06So he's probably going to try to walk on this path. But the part of it, at least if you look back at the interview he made a couple of weeks ago, it was just before the Olympics, the opening ceremony.
09:18What he said was, what I want is to give the country a government that's not going to fall in the next three days.
09:24And I believe that's what he says. And I hope that he's very sincere about that. I believe that's what he's going to get.
09:32So it's probably, he said, it's not going to be a left wing government, but it's probably going to be a government that is going to at least keep up the momentum for him and his party from now on.
09:45And on the other hand, what I kind of think about is that also he can't just get somebody who is too close to him because otherwise people are going to be, they're going to feel like they've been totally fooled.
09:56And he still has three years to stay. So he's going to have to manage all of those specific specifics about French politics, like finding somebody who's not going to get overthrown in the next three days after being selected is an extremely hard challenge.
10:14Because if you look at the math, it's very simple. You've got to get 289 to get an absolute majority. If you look at the math, it's not added up.
10:22So what is he going to do? I think, well, at least what we know is what he's not going to do. And what he's not going to do is pick someone from the left.
10:30Hind, thank you very much indeed. Pleasure speaking to you and interesting to consider all the options. And there are many more out there. Hind Ziad, founder and CEO of Génération Politique.
10:38Thank you for calling in here and speaking to us. We appreciate your time and we value Hind's analysis. Thank you very much indeed.
10:44Thank you so much.