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Report
No-confidence vote 'putting France in a very difficult position for political reasons'
FRANCE 24 English
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12/4/2024
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00:00
Well, we're joined now by a French MP for the party of the President,
00:03
Eleanor Carrois.
00:04
Thanks so much for coming in and giving us your time.
00:06
I guess we should start with this motion of no confidence.
00:09
Do you feel it's going to go through this evening?
00:12
Well, I don't have a crystal ball, but based on what the parties
00:16
that opposed these motions are saying, yeah, mathematically,
00:19
it seems like it's going to go through.
00:21
And then what happens?
00:22
I mean, then Michel Barnier, he's gone as prime minister.
00:25
It took quite a while to find him to be the prime minister.
00:27
The Assembly, a very divided one.
00:29
Yeah. And, you know, for me, the most important issue is not that much
00:33
that the government will be turned down, because that's something
00:36
that could have happened anyways when you have such a divided Assembly,
00:40
but is that we are not going to have a budget voted by the end of the year.
00:44
In the best scenario, we'll have the budget from last year apply,
00:48
which means mechanically that about 400,000
00:52
French people will pay taxes when they didn't before.
00:55
And another 17 million will have their taxes increased.
00:58
And these are only two examples of what would happen
01:01
if we don't have a proper budget.
01:03
So that's what worries me the most at this stage.
01:05
Definitely. And the financial turmoil we've seen already even impact
01:09
on the wider market and the euro.
01:11
But this budget, it was pushed through by force, clear opposition
01:15
from the parliament.
01:16
They were elected by the people.
01:18
You know, Michel Barnier doesn't come from either side of
01:21
neither the biggest group, which is the alliance of left wing parties
01:24
or the biggest party, the far right.
01:26
Yeah, and his legitimacy was based on his capacity to build a compromise.
01:30
And what he did in this budget, and I'm not going to defend that budget
01:33
because there are several things in that budget that I totally disagree with.
01:37
But what he did, and you have to give him that, is that he took proposals,
01:40
the most important proposals from the different groups,
01:43
and he tried to make a compromised budget, bearing into account
01:47
that we're in a very constrained environment and we need to reduce our debt.
01:50
So it wasn't perfect at all, but it was something
01:53
and it was negotiated and discussed with several groups.
01:55
So the fact that they turned around so quickly and so unexpectedly,
02:00
I think also shows that this was a very political move in the sense,
02:04
you know, and not in the good sense, and that it is actually putting France
02:08
into a very difficult position for politician reasons.
02:12
Indeed, and as you're saying, time tied on getting a budget in place.
02:16
There had been pressure on France, even from outside, to do so.
02:19
But without a prime minister, we're not going to have the next budget.
02:23
So the first question, I imagine, is who can take over as prime minister?
02:27
Does it need to go back to the biggest parts of Parliament?
02:31
Well, that's funny, because everyone is asking that very question.
02:34
And I think that's the question we asked ourselves six months ago.
02:37
And it isn't the question we should be asking ourselves now.
02:39
We should be asking ourselves the question of what project
02:42
are we going to be able to build?
02:43
What coalition, so to speak, before thinking about a name
02:47
with an assembly that is so divided?
02:49
We have 11 groups. We've never had that many.
02:52
They're not talking to each other.
02:53
They have different views.
02:55
Even the blocs, they talk about three blocs.
02:56
That's nonsense.
02:57
Within those blocs, there's so many differences.
02:59
So you have to find a way.
03:00
And finding a way, in my opinion, means discussing,
03:04
you know, the priorities of every single representative,
03:07
because we've all been elected legitimately
03:09
and then trying to find something that works.
03:12
And then you'll find the providential men or women.
03:15
Indeed, because other countries, I mean, it's true that like
03:17
the Netherlands often has a myriad of parties.
03:20
It's quite a new thing for France, I guess, to have so many parties
03:23
in Parliament, but we can't hold new elections here in France.
03:27
And as you say, we're all legitimately elected.
03:29
So technically, how is it going to move forward
03:31
if this vote on real confidence goes through,
03:33
if we don't have a government by the end of the week?
03:36
Where do you think the push is going to come to bring all these
03:38
dividing sides together for France?
03:40
You know, the time is not for optimism, but I can't help myself
03:44
to see some light at the end of the tunnel.
03:46
We're learning the hard way to do what other countries,
03:48
as you rightly say, do all the time.
03:50
You were inventing parliamentarism the French way.
03:53
And the truth of the matter is we've never done this
03:55
because we've always had a clear majority and a clear position,
03:58
a very binary system, as you'd have in the UK or in the US.
04:02
But the truth is we don't have that and we can't have other elections.
04:06
And in any event, you'd have elections.
04:07
You'd really have this.
04:09
I think you'd have the same results.
04:10
So it is a matter of sitting together and making compromises.
04:14
And obviously, everyone is blaming the other party,
04:17
but you have to point out clearly that a party like the Socialist Party
04:21
that has been in government, that is, you know, it's part of a bloc
04:26
that is reasonable, I would say, is not in the extreme populist party,
04:30
is not being helpful and is not cooperating, because if they were,
04:34
we wouldn't be depending upon the national rally
04:37
and we wouldn't be in the situation we're in right now.
04:39
A lot of people are also blaming
04:42
not just the party of the president to which you belong,
04:43
but the president himself who called these snap elections.
04:46
And, you know, we're hearing calls over his position.
04:49
Should that be called into the question?
04:50
You know that it's his decision that got us to where he is, where we are today.
04:55
Well, what that shows is that, in fact, the reason we're here today
04:59
is not because the parties are so unhappy with the budget,
05:01
which is a compromised budget again,
05:03
but it is because you have two important figures in France's political scene,
05:08
which are Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
05:10
They've both been candidates to the presidential election several times.
05:13
And they both think that today, you know, pushing it a bit further,
05:17
creating a bit of chaos,
05:18
they're going to be next to each other in a couple of months.
05:20
And the reason why it's so important to them, for Marine Le Pen,
05:23
is because she has a judicial, you know, verdict coming up
05:27
that might render her ineligible, which to her would be a disaster.
05:30
I mean, she's been waiting for this all her life.
05:32
And for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he's not getting younger.
05:34
And he's also hoping to be facing Marine Le Pen.
05:37
So they're both playing it very personally
05:39
and not looking into the interests of France.
05:41
And they're both hoping that Emmanuel Macron will eventually leave.
05:44
But I think that would be a disaster, obviously, for a country.
05:47
OK, well, time will have to tell where that compromise will come from.
05:51
Eleanor Carroix, thanks so much for coming in
05:53
and giving us your expertise on the situation. Thank you.
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