‘Huge’ task of forming cabinet lies ahead of new French PM

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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.

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