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00:00For more we can bring in Susan Collard, Senior Lecturer in French Politics and
00:04Contemporary European Studies at the University of Sussex.
00:07Thank you very much for joining us on the program today. Now Barnier says that
00:10his government will be a broad church, politically speaking.
00:14Just how big is the task ahead of him?
00:18Huge. First of all he's got to get enough people into his government
00:25and if he really wants to show it's a broad church
00:28he's going to have to convince people from the left. It's not
00:31that obvious who from the left will want to join. There could be a few people
00:36maybe like Ségolène Royal, I don't know, a few others who aren't associated with
00:40the the Nouveau Front Populaire or you know
00:44I think it's going to be difficult for him to
00:47to bring in enough people from the left probably to make it
00:51convincingly a coalition. But you know his task once he's got
00:56that government is to put forward a projet, you know
00:59what's he going to say in his speech for you know his
01:04Politique Générale in the National Assembly and then
01:08of course the budget this autumn that's going to be the big thing.
01:12How is he going to get the budget through and that's going to need some
01:16very very careful negotiation. So it's a big big
01:19task ahead of him. So you said it was going to be difficult
01:22to get politicians on the left to join his
01:25broad church. What sort of approach could Barnier
01:29adopt if he is serious about getting those leftists on side?
01:34I think he'll have to go for sort of goodwill responsibility. This is a
01:38national crisis. This isn't the time for playing
01:41strong partisan politics. People who want to
01:45contribute to moving things forward, to getting France out of this crisis
01:52at least for the next year till new elections can
01:56take place if that's what's going to happen.
01:58So he's going to be appealing to people who
02:02I guess would say in the UK open-minded. People who
02:08aren't necessarily you know right-wing people but who
02:14maybe other people from civil society. You know when Rocaille was
02:18Prime Minister he brought in people from civil society who were kind of
02:21open-minded. Barnier's talked about skills so there
02:25are plenty of people around with good skills who aren't particularly attached
02:29to parties. So I guess he'll be looking around a
02:33sort of broad spectrum of people to bring in.
02:36Now there has been a lot of talk of Marine Le Pen's far-right national rally
02:40being something of a kingmaker in these discussions.
02:44How much power do you think the far-right could wield
02:47in Barnier's future government? Well they're obviously playing on that a
02:53lot and in a sense they're playing a more
02:56subtle game than the Nouveau Front Populaire
02:59because they're saying well you know we'll see.
03:02Maybe we will, maybe we won't. Whereas the
03:06the left has kind of basically said you know we'll censure
03:09anything that you put forward. We don't want this government.
03:13But the thing is that you know if it gets to
03:17the national rally wanting to put forward a censure motion, I mean they
03:20can't win that on their own. They would have to have votes from the
03:26left and you know previously the left has
03:29never supported any of the national rally's censure motions whereas the
03:32national rally did support censure motions from the left.
03:36So you know obviously they're wanting to put
03:42forward what a strong position they're in.
03:46But I think it's not quite as strong as they are trying to make out.
03:50And of course it is very early days for Michel Barnier, nominated only on
03:53Thursday. It's important to remember he's from
03:56the Républicain Parti, they came fourth in legislative elections over
04:00the summer two months ago. What sort of popularity
04:05ratings are we expecting for this Prime Minister?
04:09Well I'm not sure that that's going to be the kind of,
04:13I know France loves popularity ratings. I don't think that's going to be the
04:18key thing. I mean he's unlikely to be popular
04:24in the way that you know Attal was popular.
04:28He's got such a difficult task ahead of him that he's going to be
04:32struggling to sort of win the popularity contests.
04:38But I think he probably sees his job as not being popular but being
04:42efficient and effective and trying to actually
04:45keep the show on the road as it were.
04:48Susan Collard, Senior Lecturer in French Politics and Contemporary European
04:51Studies at the University of Sussex. Thank you very much indeed.