French far right exerts outsize power over Barnier and Macron, rivals say
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00:00Alice, joining me on the set, our foreign editor, Angela Diffley. Hello to you.
00:03Angela, there's been some talk that the far-right leader, Marine Le Pen,
00:07is actually going to be kingmaker in all of this. How did that come about?
00:11Yeah, well, as Claire said, she was, in a sense, given a veto over the appointment of who might
00:19be Prime Minister. Macron tried several names. He had to find someone who wouldn't immediately
00:24be toppled. Without giving Barnier a green light entirely, she let it be known that they wouldn't
00:31go out of their way to topple him. That means that the far-right Rassemblement National,
00:37who Macron and most of the political establishment told the French electorate were outside the bounds
00:45of what was proper democratic politics in France, they have now ended up with being in a position
00:53to say this person will be Prime Minister, this person won't. It isn't quite as straightforward
00:59as that. Claire was talking about how the left indeed have said this election was stolen from us,
01:05but this election was quite difficult to read. In the European elections which preceded it,
01:10the Rassemblement National did extremely well. Then in the elections which finished on July 7th,
01:17the parliamentary elections, it was difficult to draw clear conclusions. Nine million people,
01:23the largest popular vote went to the Rassemblement National. Nine million, the next was
01:29seven million or so. So if you look at the popular vote, the largest number of people
01:33voted for the Rassemblement National. Over 50% of French people voted for some right-wing
01:39government or party. Nevertheless, the party with the highest number of MPs was this left-wing
01:47alliance. So what was Macron to make of that? It should be said that the left-wing alliance
01:55perhaps didn't play its card very well. The person they nominated didn't spend the summer
02:00negotiating and trying to find some compromise deal with members of the centre. They were fairly
02:06clear that they would stick pretty much to their own manifesto. Many people questioned whether those
02:11on the left really wanted to be in government and the same could be said of Marine Le Pen's party as
02:16well. It's not as straightforward as all of that. It should be said that Barnier can be toppled at
02:23any time, but do those MPs really want to find themselves back in front of the electorate very
02:28quickly? They can arithmetically get rid of Michel Barnier, but it is to be supposed that probably
02:37he will have enough votes to get that budget through. Marine Le Pen has a court case coming
02:42up. She probably doesn't want to have the distraction of more elections. We'll see where it
02:47all goes, but it's all very, very messy. Barnier is seen as the person who might have a chance of
02:54making this thing work by Macron. And so what do you think we should expect from this new prime
02:58minister? Well, for someone who's had a very long career in politics, he does not have a lot of
03:04enemies. Everybody says that he is good at building consensus. Outside France, of course, he's best
03:12known as leading the team in the Brexit negotiations with Britain. He was the person behind that idea
03:19that the 27 members would stay absolutely united in negotiations with Britain. Now, that might have
03:26fallen apart at any time had he been antagonistic towards one or other members of the European Union,
03:34but he didn't. He's good at finding consensus. That is something very much which will help him.
03:40Macron, of course, will be very interested in the fact that he doesn't have presidential
03:44ambitions himself. Barnier, he tried and failed quite spectacularly in 2022. Macron himself won't
03:52be standing again. He can't after two terms. But it's good to know that your prime minister
03:57isn't operating in a way that will enhance his chances for an upcoming presidential election.
04:03That's something in his favour. Something else very important about Barnier is that he's not
04:11just a member of the Paris or the Brussels elite. He has very strong roots in the Alps, where he grew
04:17up. He was responsible for that Olympic bid way back, the Winter Olympics, which were held in
04:22Albertville way back in the 90s. He has a very strong connection with France outside Paris and
04:29Brussels. So he's likely to have his finger more on the pulse than some prime ministers. It is to
04:34be hoped that that might help him. The thing that matters above everything is that budget. They have
04:41to present a draft proposal by the 1st of October. He has to have a team in place by then and some
04:46kind of draft budget that will be passed. Otherwise, mayhem. All right, Angela, thank you very much.