Macron: What he said and what he meant

CGTN Europe

Emmanuel Macron has insisted he is not to blame for France’s paralysis. CGTN’s Stuart Smith analyzes the troubled French President's dramatic address to the nation.

Transcript

00:00The government lost a no-confidence vote, despite the concessions made by Prime Minister Michel Barnier to all the parliamentary groups.

00:08It lost a no-confidence vote, which is unheard of in 60 years, because far-right and far-left joined together in an anti-republican front.

00:16This couldn't have passed without cross-party support from a swathe of opposition lawmakers.

00:21They say they had no choice because Michel Barnier's budget was too radical on public spending cuts and tax rises.

00:28But President Emmanuel Macron believes that what they were really doing was trying to weaken him and his government,

00:34and so he wants the public to blame them for this mess, not his own leadership.

00:38A special law will be tabled in Parliament before the middle of December,

00:42and this temporary law will, as our constitution stipulates, allow the continuity of our public services and the life of the country.

00:49It will apply to 2025 the choices made in 2024.

00:53Without a government, no new laws can be passed, which includes the budget for 2025, which lays out what the government can spend money on.

01:01So in order that the country doesn't grind to a halt next year,

01:05President Macron will nominate a new prime minister in the next few days,

01:09whose main priority will be to roll over the 2024 budget into the first few months of 2025.

01:17If he manages to pick a prime minister who can form a government that can command parliamentary support,

01:22then they'll look again at changing the budget for the next year.

01:25The mandate you democratically gave me is a five-year mandate, and I will carry it out fully until the end.

01:33After that no-confidence vote and the collapse of the government,

01:36Emmanuel Macron, the president, was under extreme pressure to resign himself,

01:41but there's no law that requires him to resign,

01:43and he's saying here that he will stay on regardless of what happens until his term ends in spring 2027.

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