French politics: What's next for new PM Barnier's govt?
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00:00can bring in our International Affairs Editor, Angela Diffley. Angela, great to see you.
00:04Firstly, how significant were these protests which we saw over the weekend?
00:09It's important to note that, for example, the trade unions did not call out their people.
00:14I think many on the right and the centre will be thinking that it might have been worse.
00:22100,000 people, the Olympics are on still. We will see whether this idea gathers momentum
00:28or dwindles somewhat. I think out amongst ordinary people, a lot of people are getting tired of the
00:35entire issue and therefore that might break people's participation in this sort of thing.
00:42We'll have to see. That said, 74% of the French people in a poll said they felt that Emmanuel
00:48Macron had not respected the results of these parliamentary elections earlier in the summer.
00:5555% said they thought the election had been stolen. So it's to be seen whether this thing
01:03will gather momentum or not. Apart from that, of course, there is a lot of disquiet about the fact
01:11that MPs, candidates in those summer elections and voters, cooperated, collaborated to block
01:19the possibility of the Rassemblement National on the far right winning a majority. That was
01:25a successful manoeuvre. It meant that they did not get a majority of MPs. But against that, there is
01:32the fact that they did have the largest popular vote. 9 million voters voted for the Rassemblement
01:37National despite this effort to block them out and they still are the single party with the highest
01:42number of votes. So it's a messy election anyway and a lot of people will just now be watching to
01:49see what happens. Now Barnier has taken the reins. Let's talk about Emmanuel Macron's position.
01:56Is he skating on thin ice? Because just last night at the closing ceremony at the Paralympics,
02:00he was reportedly booed. Yeah, he is not in a good place. He will certainly not want to go
02:08through this again. If this government is toppled and the left have said they will at the first
02:14opportunity, the left-wing alliance within parliament will at the first opportunity
02:19table a motion of no confidence, it's not clear that they would win that. Important to know
02:26that the far right was not giving a blank check, they say, to Michel Barnier. They have said they
02:32will not automatically try to topple this government. But the left are keen to do that.
02:41Macron will not want to go through this again. He will then have to find another prime minister.
02:45He is very fragilised by this, to use the French word. He let it be known at the weekend that he
02:53will govern and he will preside and Barnier will govern. That is actually what is meant to happen
03:00under the French system anyway. But Macron has been so hyperactive, it's often been difficult
03:04to see where his power stops and the prime minister's starts. I think perhaps we might
03:09expect to see him with a different relationship with the French, more out in the countryside
03:16than he has been until now. Importantly, his advisers will no longer go to ministerial
03:23meetings and he will not share the same advisers as Barnier. It's important to show that this is
03:30a change. It's a change, but what can we expect from the incoming prime minister in the days to
03:36come? He has to choose his team still and he will no doubt have told those that he is considering
03:44to join his team what sort of direction he hopes to take the government in. But the rest of us
03:50will not get a public outlining before Parliament of his policy direction until early October, he
03:57has said. So we won't know the team until a few days from now, in the coming weeks, and he will
04:05then outline his direction. We can expect many of the priorities of the mainstream right
04:11from which he comes are not very different to the priorities of the Rassemblement National.
04:16We can expect an emphasis on law and order and security, which all the polls suggest the French
04:22people want to be a priority and to be sorted out. Law and order, immigration, cost of living, they
04:27will be his priorities. And he's a consensus builder. He will try and make this thing work.
04:32We'll see how the story pans out. Thank you very much for that, Angela. Angela Diffrey there.