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00:00Let's come back to France now, where the country is still mired in political chaos
00:03one week after Prime Minister Michel Barnier was kicked out in a no-confidence vote.
00:08This afternoon, Emmanuel Macron is meeting with all the country's political parties,
00:12except, that is, the far-right National Rally and the far-left France Unbowed, the French
00:17president's office saying only those who were in a, quote, framework of compromise
00:22were invited to attend.
00:23France's parliament has been divided almost evenly between the left alliance, Macron's
00:28interests, and the far-right since the snap election he called in July.
00:32Last week, the prime minister was ousted over a cost-cutting draft budget for 2025 meant
00:36to tackle France's massive deficit.
00:39We're going to talk more about all of this now with French politics specialist Benoît
00:43Dillier.
00:44Benoît, thanks for taking the time to speak to us.
00:45Here we are almost one week after the prime minister was toppled in that confidence vote,
00:49President Macron meeting all the parties today, except, as I was saying, the far-right and
00:53the far-left.
00:54Do you think this is the right approach?
00:58Not really.
00:59I think he's trying to find a new political culture that cannot emerge so quickly.
01:03I think the crisis in France will last for another year or two.
01:08So we're in a period of transition now between basically the parliamentary election and the
01:13coming presidential election in 2027.
01:16This is the end of Macron in many ways.
01:18His power is waning and not many people actually, yeah, his authority is really declining now.
01:26So just explain that a bit more for our international viewers, if you like.
01:29France does not have the right to hold elections again until next summer, correct?
01:33Yes, that's right.
01:35And this is why.
01:36So there's a lot of gesture politics.
01:37I think also a lot of people are very careful.
01:40If they agree to be in a government, they don't really know if the government will stay
01:46for another few months.
01:47So we are in a period where there's a lot of instability.
01:50It's not unlike a country like Italy, where, you know, you've got a lot of new governments.
01:56It doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad for governing.
01:58It just means that it's very different for the French political culture.
02:02We haven't really had that instability for a long time.
02:06So given that, can we even talk about, think about who might be France's next prime minister
02:10at this point?
02:11I mean, one name that's been tossed about as a centrist, François Bayrou.
02:14Could he be the candidate?
02:17Oh, I seriously doubt he will be the prime minister.
02:21Also, you had some really problematic cases against him.
02:25I think, well, there's one candidate, which is Lucie Castex, who was put forward by the
02:31left and they were very clear on the mandate that they wanted to give her.
02:35You have to remember that in back in July, back in June, the left came first to the parliamentary
02:40election and Macron decided actually to nominate someone from a political party that the right
02:46voted for.
02:47So in many ways, it was deeply unpopular what he decided to do.
02:51So now we've got, so probably the left will be given a choice to govern, but Macron wants
02:57a very moderate left.
02:58And I think he's wrong here.
03:01He's wrong?
03:02I think he's wrong because he doesn't realize that the center of gravity of the left is
03:06much more radical left than he thinks.
03:08And it's not just in terms of party politics, but it's also in terms of the voters.
03:15And he just doesn't want to realize that.
03:16And even the Socialist Party, they don't really want to make an alliance with the right-wing
03:20parties or the centrist parties.
03:22One of the big issues here, of course, if Michel Barnier, the former prime minister,
03:26lost his job, it was over plans to cut costs to get France's budget back in line.
03:30Now, the budget does need to get back in line.
03:33Which party has the best economic policy to actually help France get a handle on its massive
03:38deficit?
03:39I think it's really interesting.
03:41I think the economic policy here is absolutely crucial.
03:45What we have witnessed is by calling the snap election in June actually created, Macron
03:49created a lot of chaos on financial markets for France.
03:52So he partly is responsible also for the bad economic situation that France is finding
03:57itself in.
03:58But he doesn't really want to recognize that.
04:01And he also really wanted a kind of austerity plan, and that was what Barnier put forward
04:06and that was rejected by the National Assembly.
04:08So clearly it is not possible to go forward with austerity.
04:12And what, at the moment, the political landscape needs is new ideas on economic policies, alternative
04:20forms of economic policies.
04:23We're currently in what's known as the fifth republic here in France.
04:26Do you think there's any chance there might be a push to change the French constitution,
04:30eventually creating a sixth republic?
04:33Yeah.
04:34So this was the proposal from Jean-Luc Mélenchon since 2012.
04:38So it's been basically for the last 12 years.
04:40I think that's absolutely right.
04:42I think the institutions of the fifth republic are really crumbling.
04:46We've seen lots of problems over the last few years.
04:49And this could be a possibility.
04:51Yeah.
04:52Thanks so much for that, French politics specialist Benoît Dier for taking the time to speak
04:56to us here on France 24.