France's new PM Barnier meets with Macron to discuss cabinet

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00:00The Prime Minister meeting the President this Friday at the Elysee Palace.

00:04Our reporter Claire Pacquerel standing by outside and we can speak to her now.

00:08Hello to you, Claire.

00:10What's on the agenda for this meeting between Michel Barnier and President Macron?

00:16Well, they need to work out who will be in the cabinet, who the ministers will be.

00:22The way it works is this.

00:23The Prime Minister proposes a list of who he wants in the cabinet,

00:28but it's the President who names those ministers.

00:31And this is where things get a little bit tricky.

00:34In the past, when we've had a President and a Prime Minister from the same political group

00:38or party, at least they've been on the same page.

00:41They may not agree with every single nomination, but they're on the same page politically.

00:46Here, things are different.

00:47We have Emmanuel Macron, of course, his party in Parliament, Renaissance centrist.

00:52Michel Barnier is a stalwart of the right-wing Les Républicains party.

00:56While to a certain extent Michel Barnier, the new Prime Minister, is seen as Macron-compatible,

01:01he will also want to distance himself, to break free from any accusations that he's

01:06Macron's choice, that he's Macron's man.

01:08And so who will be named to those key positions?

01:11Minister of Defence, Minister of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

01:16We don't know exactly what that new government is going to look like,

01:19but Michel Barnier and Emmanuel Macron will be meeting this afternoon at the Elysee Palace,

01:23just behind me, and they will be discussing, the negotiations are beginning,

01:28they will be discussing who the next Ministers of France are going to be.

01:32And Claire, we were just listening to that stand-by to Michel Barnier,

01:35where he promised respect for all political forces, but to be very frank,

01:40the left is very unhappy about his appointment.

01:47Extremely unhappy about his appointment.

01:51The new popular front, so that's that coalition, which is made up of the La France Insoumise,

01:56France Saint-Baptiste, that far-left party, the Communist Party, the Greens,

01:59as well as the Socialist Party, they clubbed together for the parliamentary elections,

02:04put forward a joint manifesto.

02:06They won the most seats in Parliament, but they came far short of an overall majority.

02:12So while they claim that they won those elections, Emmanuel Macron has argued

02:16that their choice for Prime Minister, Lucie Castex,

02:19he rejected that choice, saying that she would fall at the first hurdle,

02:22that she would be voted out in a vote of no confidence in Parliament

02:26by other members of Parliament.

02:28That's why he's chosen Michel Barnier.

02:30But of course, the accusation is Michel Barnier is from Les Républicains,

02:34that right-wing party.

02:35They came fourth in the parliamentary elections.

02:38So you have those on the left saying, what has happened?

02:40We came first, and yet we're seeing a man from the party

02:44who came fourth as our Prime Minister.

02:48There's a demonstration planned for tomorrow.

02:50La France Insoumise is calling on its supporters to demonstrate,

02:54as well as the Communist Party, the Greens, as well as some student unions.

02:57They're calling on their members to demonstrate here in Paris

03:01and in other towns and cities across France.

03:03So certainly there's been tumultuous times in French politics,

03:07and we're not out of the woods yet.

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