French government again set to fall: Unpopular leaders or institutional crisis? • FRANCE 24

French government again set to fall: Unpopular leaders or institutional crisis? • FRANCE 24

It’s back to school in Europe with plenty to fret about both near and far. Now Europe’s got a new worry. France after last year’s shocked dissolution of parliament that begat a hung parliament. The clock ticking for a prime minister who’s now got six days to convince resolute opposition parties that he was right to preempt a rockus showdown over a painful austerity budget and call a vote of confidence scheduled for next Monday. Like with Emanuel Mu a year ago, Franis Buu was under no obligation to put his neck on the line. But he did. And if all goes to script next Monday, the centrist Bou, a mainstay of French politics for decades, will have to pack and make way for Macron’s fifth prime minister since his re-election in 2022. Why this seemingly self-inflicted crisis? What are the president’s options? The far left and far right want the term limited me to resign. Is it about the man or the system? Next week’s vote only the start of it. Trade unions have latched on to a yellow vest style day of action called for September the 10th. Where will that lead? Maybe nowhere. But it’s anyone’s guess in a nation where stereotypes would have citizens preferring revolution to reform. France fared better than most during co but never did shut the tap on stimulus spending. Rising borrowing costs mean that whatever politicians decide next, it is now for the markets time to pay the piper. Today in the France 24 debate, should Europe worry about France. And with us, French member of parliament cla from LF, the left-wing France unbound party. Thanks for being with us. Thanks as well to Duni B, professor of public law at the University Pont Assess. Good to see you. Hello. Thank And you’re writing working on a book on under dissolution on the first dissolution 2024 of 2024 first one with us as well Daniel Lant political science researcher at Paris Pontion Sban University. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for meeting me and columnist and strategist moral senior adviser at communications agency no comm. How are you? Hi good. Okay reminder by the way you can always listen. That’s right. Listen to the France 24 debate wherever podcasts are streamed. Overheard on French radio this morning. Is this a Liz Truss moment? Her 45day tenure as UK prime minister precipitated by an unexpected massive tax cut that she announced sent the British pound tumbling and she was soon out. It’s an expression here too. What with French borrowing costs hitting a 14year high. analysts insists it’s not about France’s massive public deficit, but it’s about the political instability. uh the uh uh rising uh debt those pundits saying that for now it’s it’s uh it’s not yet a Liz Truss moment Philip but is it is it close to that because Liz Trust didn’t have to announce this big tax cut and it backfired miserably and she was out of a job. That’s pretty much the same thing. Fabo didn’t have to, you know, decide that on September 8th there would be a vote in the parliament against him. That’s most probably what will happen. He didn’t have to do that. Why did he do it? That’s you know that’s that’s a question we all ask ourselves. Why did he do it? Uh there are three main hypothesis. The first one is he wants to get out of this situation um you know with a high profile with the ability of saying uh I I told you so you know saving preserving his own image is one possibility that’s the first one. The second possibility is that he wants to be a candidate for 20 27 for the next presidential election. So he will be out but he will have be the one it will have been the one fighting against the budget spending. It will be the candidate for the conservatives. It could be a second hypothesis. And the third one is that he expects maybe to win and he sees a possibility that no one except him sees including MPs in his own rank and fights. Have the political fault lines changed in any kind of way since that announcement? No, I wouldn’t say they have. I mean very early we said we would not vote for confidence and fairly quickly afterwards most opposition parties said u more or less the the same thing but maybe it’s important to remind that actually for a government that’s in power the normal thing to do is to ask for the confidence and the abn the animality is that governments have been minority governments and have not asked for the confidence from parliament. So in a way it was the right thing to do and um in a in a way also he knew that we he was going to face a major opposition when wanting to pass to pass through this budget and he probably would have fallen anyway with a vote of no no confidence a bit uh a bit further down the line. So I’d say asking the parliament do you support me or do you not support me is the normal thing to do in a normal democracy. But I think this brings us back to the conversation about is it just a what they are trying to portray as a fiscal crisis or are we on in a system crisis, a democratic crisis, a political crisis which brings us back to the position of Mron and the fact that there’s a disconnect between the policies he wants to impose and what the majority of French people want nowadays. You you you say the normal thing to do. Were you nonetheless surprised? Um, I don’t think anyone expected it from him. Um, but I think uh he knew that he wouldn’t be staying for long. So, it’s his way maybe of trying to save some kind of image and to go down in history as a person who would have said the truth uh to the French people. That’s what he’s saying. But what’s important to say is that what he’s portraying as the truth is very honestly a bunch of uh sometimes lies uh about the level of debt comparing French situation to the Greek situation. There’s no comparison possible between the Greek and French situation using exaggerations that have no legitimacy. trying to uh to feed into fears and to get people on board by kind of saying right the IMF is going to come down tomorrow and France is going to be in in chaos. That’s that’s not reality and it’s not very honest to portray it in this way because it cuts the possibility of an honest democratic debate and I think French people are expecting that from us more than anything else. All right. the the France part of the Euro zone. They have a uh 3% of the debt should not be more than 3% of uh of uh uh the size of GDP in France. It’s it’s double that. Um yet in the how to make friends and influence people department in trying to make his pitch to the French people. The 74year-old prime minister appeared to alienate both old and young when he called for budgetary belt tightening in the name of the younger generation. They’re the victims. They’re the ones that will have to pay the debt for their entire lives. And we’ve convinced them that we needed to increase it more. Isn’t that great? All this for the comfort of certain political parties and for the comfort of boomers, as they’re called, who from this vantage point feel that everything is just fine. There’s been a lot of chatter about lemer as the the French call them since since uh since that vote by the way I’m I’m officially under the limit by one year so I’m not a boomer just so you know Daniel is here sorry excuse me I said Daniel I meant D the the what did you make of that statement and and and again uh what does that tell you about Frana Buou in this moment? Well, to come back to the discussion about Liz Truss, Truss was confident she would stay on and really she was toppled by the market backlash because of her poor um policy decisions. Uh B is very different. He’s been a prime minister in name only. He hasn’t really governed. He hasn’t had a coalition. His cabinet minister didn’t even know he would ask for the confident vote next week. What did he do as a prime minister? what what what is actually his program? We we don’t really know and we still don’t. So I guess Philip has laid out the reasons why the scenarios why he has resigned. We don’t know because we are not in his own brain but probably he did that because of the budget horizon and he wants to appear as uh the reasonable man the the adult in in the room. Uh it’s not for me to tell. I’m not an economist but it seems many people would think that his act his program to um fight the deficit is quite imbalanced. Uh we have like a 100 millions structural deficit 83 millions are caused by the um policy of mitig balanced budget. You would take money from business and take money from uh um middle class. He he he cut he he both cut taxes uh then at the same time I’m not an economist doing party politics but he’s really hit the middle class household. How will it go for him politically? Time will tell. Uh Dun Bal you said he didn’t make build a coalition. Could he have could he have tried or is France people say oh no we don’t do coalition. The golden rule, the golden rule of a parliamentary government like in the UK is that you start by building a majority and then you become the obvious prime minister. Mr. Mr. Macron has done the reverse. He’s done that in reverse gear. He wanted to choose someone from his own team like that sort of people who had no majority at all. And then Beeru told him if you don’t take me I’m going to leave you and then you’ll be left in the wild without a majority at all. Mr. has never even tried to have majority in parliament. So now he’s leaving because he’s never had a majority. And to be honest, why didn’t he try? That’s a good question. I think most prime ministers see themselves now as would be presidents. He he’s been a wouldbe president all all the time like like Mr. Bar and they see themselves as predecessors as as their predecessors like Michelle Dubé, people from the fifth republic who are supported by a president. They didn’t need a majority because the president had a majority. They behave like that and in their brain in their own mind they behave as people from the early days the happy days of the fifth republic. These days are gone forever. The fifth republic used to be robust was very stable because there was still majority. The president had a majority in parliament and the prime minister was only uh the guy working for for for for a glorified chief of staff. No, absolutely the glorified chief of staff. Those days are gone unburied and Mr. Barry is facing that. Damian K when you saw this again the the the original sin that what Denise book is about is this dissolution of parliament after a poor showing in the European elections of in May of last year. Could there have been coalition building? It was something that was promised. In fact, yeah, I do think the the original scene of this parliamentary term is the refusal of President Emanuel Macron to uh acknowledge the victory of the Republican front and the the victory of a new popular front, the the leftwing coalition that was uh the the first political coalition inside the the Republican front. You say a a victory, but it was if you tally up all of the left from the reformists to the hardliners, you get more than a third, and that’s that’s not a majority. Yes, but it was Yes. But the result of a snap election was a victory of the Republican front against the far right. Uh because between the two rounds, the the left wings and the the centrists uh were rallying against the the candidate in each district against the farright candidate. And it is also a truth that the the left-wing alliance was the first political force inside the Republican front. So the most logic parliamentary logic solution was for the president to appoint leftwing government would uh that would have to reach compromises and to negotiate within parliament to to reach compromises with the the cent with the the centrist coalition. So it was it is the original scene of this legislative term that Emanuel did not appoint Lucy Cast the leftwing candidate for prime minister and after that Michel Bernier tried to to m to to lead a government that was dependent on the far right which was kind of a betrayal of the Republican front on in the first place and depend on the far right to what extent sorry dependent on the far right to what because he did not try to to reach compromises with the left wing. So it was uh so the only solution for him was to uh to rely on the abstension of the far right. And so Fou uh which is interesting is that FOU has always prided himself as a centrist as a unifier, someone who want to to work across the across the political divisions but it is true that he he has not shown a real willingness to uh to reach compromises with the left wing. uh he did uh discuss with uh some parties of the left and the the Greens, the communists and the socialists accepted to discuss with him. But in the end only the socialists uh decided that they had obtained enough concessions to not vote against him for the the 2025 budget. But even them they had really a hard time to obtain any major concessions and Freru did not respect most of them. So he he had not shown a real ability to uh to reach compromises inside the Republican front. All right. One by one the last uh 48 hours politicians have been filing into the prime minister’s office in the left bank of Paris to see the uh perhaps outgoing prime minister. The far right Marin Lupin whose national rally has the most seats in parliament uh calling the visit a courtesy call saying the real issue is not by it’s the man at the top. The truth is that Emanuel Macron’s brand of politics is toxic. It is applied by a certain number of ministers, whether they’re from the right, the left, or the center. For us, it matters little. It isn’t personal. We don’t hold grudges against anyone. We’ve noticed that none of the prime ministers have been brave enough to cut ties with Macronism. like that. She talks about macronism uh in that clip. Uh the far right like the far like the far left like your party is calling uh for the president to resign. Although she seemed to be sort of tempering that. She didn’t say that in that particular outing. Yes. So it seems to me that the national are calling more for a new dissolution. That’s their that’s their primary goal. Um and indeed um Be’s government was actually leaning to their their types of policies and also feeding into the racism that the national frontel actually harbors. So the opposition between macronism and farright policies is actually much more blurred than it was when macronism first started. And this is where we ISIS to say the the heart of the crisis is indeed not at the in the national assembly but at the it’s Emanuel M because he’s in a denial of the disconnect there is between his brand of policies and what the French have been consistently voting at the European elections and then at the legislative elections soon after that. So if we don’t tackle that issue, then we can name another prime minister. He’ll probably fall after the next budget and we’ll go from crisis to crisis. If we don’t look at the heart of this crisis, which is a political crisis linked to the concentrated forms of power that are characteristic from the fifth the fifth republic. So if we don’t look this in the eye, then we’re going to play into maybe what M is expecting, maybe another dissolution with the far right coming to power, which is something that we managed to prevent. But the French the French like strong leaders, don’t they? Uh the leader of your party once said, uh I’m the state. Yeah. And we also have M who said that um the French people were actually nostalgic of the times that we had kings. He said this was so I don’t I don’t think that’s necessarily a sociological political fact. I think now there’s a strong movement uh for more uh power that would be placed in the people’s hand and more regular in the people’s hand. Does that mean parliament? Well, we had the yellow vests. They were calling for the referendum who would actually give back power, give back the voice to the people more regularly. So more referendums. Yeah. And now we have that bypasses parliament as well. You’re a member of parliament. Exactly. Parliament is important and but the people’s voice is important as well. And we what we’ve been seeing also is that the parliament’s v voice has been completely uh ignored by the the minority governments that have been in place last uh last year. We did our job as uh MPs. We were building a budget, voting the amendments, and then the Bani used article 49.3 and just put everything in the bin and just put back what they wanted to do. Turn turn the turn the budget battle into a vote of confidence. Yeah. So in in this type of situation, yes, we’ve got to look at it in uh and see that we’ve got a deep democratic crisis and that the only way out of this, I think, is a regime change and going towards something like a sixth republic with more executive power or less less executive power. You can’t do much more than more executive power than what we’ve got currently and especially not in the way that Mron uh is using the con the constitution. To think that until recently Germany seems more unstable politically than France. They have a new chancellor Friedri Mertz who brought his government to the French Riviera last Friday for one of those joint cabinet meetings the two nations regularly stage to remind us that old enemies can then become best of friends working in tandem. And uh after cool relations with Mertz’s predecessor Olaf Scholes, France’s president promising a long life for this new uh buddy act as he dismissed calls to resign. I believe in democracy. Democracy consists of people voting for a given mandate. The mandate which has been given to me by the French people and by no one else is a mandate that will be carried out through the end of its term in accordance with the commitment I make to the French people. even with all due respect to those who have been defeated several times in these same elections. It’s interesting Philip Moh uh at a time when uh Donald Trump is stating I’m the president of the United States. I can do whatever I want. Yes. What do you make of that statement here? He’s saying it’s it’s that this is democracy and that he was elected and he’s allowed to finish out his mandate. Your your thoughts on the statement that you saw there? Uh the good thing is that he what he puts forward is the uh frame the institution the rules is not putting himself ahead of the rules. As long as that lasts we are in a better position and we are better suited than you Americans with Donald Trump. I’m sorry for you Franis but that’s that’s that’s the truth for the months to come at least. Uh we never know. And uh the the the the good the very important thing that Mar Le Pen did point out in what she said is that uh we need to cut ties with Emanuel Mron collectively if we want to build something else politically. The candidates that will that won’t cut ties with Emanuel Mron will be doomed. Why? Because there are two populist forces. um one on the left I won’t insult you by saying which it is but there is a populist force on the left and there is a national a huge huge huge unbelievably strong farright force uh on the right which is also populist and these two populist fronts are converging on some points such as you know they are pro-Russian there are antivaccines a lots of things are converging between these two fronts and the moderates if they want to sustain themselves They have to pro to to give the people something new. They have to propose something new and they have to cut ties with Emanuel Macron. It’s very difficult for Edward Philip who was Macron’s prime minister to cut ties. It’s very difficult for Gabriel who was also Macron’s prime minister to cut ties. These are potential candidates for 2027. candidates and what France my call is term limited what is doing is making the situation even worse than was expected by saying to the people this is the end of the times we are dying the country is going to you know uh to the gutters we I’m the only one who can save this country from itself and uh with strict measures so no positive perspective no solutions nothing but doom that’s what he proposes with so it’s hugely rejected by 80% 89% of the population do want to get rid of their prime minister. So the situation is dire really though and from the democratic perspective it’s dire. All right let’s look at the makeup here. By the way the last time a Franco German cabinet meeting was staged it was spring of 2024 just before ML dissolved parliament when he was just a few seats shy of a majority uh only for those snap elections to backfire. As we said uh at 74 by who might be thinking about his legacy the country by and here you see uh what the uh the fact that after that uh dissolution on July the 8th we saw that the uh Mron’s coalition shrank uh as a result. So when you look at this pie chart uh Dun B with if you’re going to try to build a coalition government old style uh how do you do it? I don’t know implicitly I mean the implicit reasoning in Mronto um that we just heard is basically I’ve been democratically elected at universal suffrage so I should govern the country. There is not nothing self-evident with this. The president of Portugal, the president of Austria, they’re elected at universal suffrage. They don’t govern the country. They leave that to a prime minister with a majority in parliament. So, Macron’s choice not to take Madame Castets could be understandable in the sense of Madame Cast. She didn’t she did not have a majority like you said, but he had to find someone who who was able to reach across the al. So you could have for instance since uh uh the circle I don’t know how to say that in English but the people who are governing right now the sort of the middle ground the middle ground who are actually in the part in yellow if you will the part in yellow and sky blue exactly the yellow the yellow guys on your chart they could have reached across the two the socialists were quite open to some understanding on some so they could have chipped away at that red part on our and even before the dissolution it was very possible for Mron on his prime minister at the time to have an agreement with Le Republica on not going to the dissolution. Uh there was nothing necessary for the dissolution. He could have done that before the dissolution. Today is so blur that actually I don’t think anybody is going to come to the table or negotiate an agreement with anybody else. So Mron said he would not leave the el palace. Yeah. Because it’s it’s it’s the end of 2025. The election is not till the spring of 2027. Can perfectly stay on. He could be dismissed by a special vote in parliament, but probably it’s not going to happen. The second option is uh uh a new prime minister. It is probably going to be groundhog day again and again. It’s going to be the same story. That person will not have Madrid in parliament. So uh the end would be probably a second dissolution and then it will be 2027. Mr. Mron will have to go because he cannot do a third mandate. And we will know and to come back to your first question people will have a new president and we will be back to the normal sort of normal fifth republics probably with a strong executive that would be uh I think that that would be the scenario I would favor. What is your crystal ball tell you? U first of all I think it it’s clear that the fifth republic cannot work as it used to when you have a political party system that is so divided and so so fragmented and I’m not sure that we can go back to to normal. Uh I think that even with our majority electoral system even a snap election and even a parliamentary election after a presidential one you you can still have a very divided parliament. So once again, I think that uh the the current uh legislative term can only work if you respect the the the logic of the uh of the 2024 election that is the victory of the Republican front and you you search for compromises inside the Republican front that is between the left wing and the centrist coalition. And the problem is that until now, President Macron has really been willing to protect his legacy at all costs. And he is re he he refuses absolutely that uh his policies especially his fiscal polishes in favor of the rich uh to be to be withdrawn and to be uh to to make any anything that could withdraw his is legacy. Right now, Emanuel Macron and the the centrist coalition is really uh blocking any real compromises. But even if the even if the left comes to power, they still would not have a majority. No, but they they would have any uh any government right now would have to uh to walk across the hills to to find uh to find majority. That is why I think given that the the the voters in the 2024 election voted against the far right, they voted for the either the leftwing coalition or the the centrist in the second run to uh to prevent uh the national rally to win to win a majority. Obviously the the the leftists and the centrists have to work together to to to uh now that they are prevented the far right to uh to come into power. So if the there is no uh no government able to find to reach some majority some compromises between the centrist and the at least part of the of the left wing there is no possibility to have a functional majority right now. Khan under what circumstances uh would you see your party taking part in any kind of coalition government right now at this point? Well, I think there’s one element which is important to point out and to understand what’s going to unfold in weeks to come. I really don’t share the analysis that there would be two populist blocks that converge. Actually, the leftwing block has has been the only block to consistently fight farright ideas. And if you look at our votes this year in the National Assembly, we are the ones who vote the most against uh the far right. But you do have one block which is converging with the far right which is the central block. And this is why we are in a crisis. It’s because the Republican front can’t work as it did a few years ago because we are uh facing a centrist block which is sliding to the far right when you look at the themes when you look at the narrative when you look at their votes. So today uh the risk indeed if there’s a dissolution is that we won’t have the capacity to form this Republican front because we’ve got the central block which is already kind of governing hand in hand with the far right. When you look at the way uh the minister Hutu uh used his power he was leaning on the far right very clearly and that’s the result of macronism. That’s the result the rise of the far. So if Emanuel Meon tomorrow were to offer as was asked by the by by this coalition of leftwing parties uh to name this high civil servant Luci Caste as the prime minister would you be amendable to having ministers from your party and that government to have a government um which defense program we were elected on because we heard Emanuel Mron says I’ve been elected I’m going to respect my mandate and go towards the five years. I’ve been elected. I have a mandate. It lasts five years and he hasn’t found a problem uh in dissolving the national national assembly and doing it potentially twice. So if we’re in conditions where we can um apply our program then there’s then there’s a debate in the national assembly and uh that’s where democracy happens. But we’re not going to water down our ambitions and our program beforehand. And that’s our strategic difference with the socialist party right now. they want to go into government with uh kind of watered down version of uh of the program that we defended uh together uh only last year. So So does that mean the divorce is sealed with the socialists? Well, they seem to have sealed their divorce with the program we that we were the platform that we were meant to be defending uh together. So I’ll take that as a probably yes. Um if we look at the current uh stage of affairs then they seem to have moved away from the reasons we had to stay together in 2024. It brings us to a point that was made earlier by Clan. Is it about the the system or is it about the man the Emanuel M who still is popular abroad by the way? So it’s sometimes difficult to explain. he’s seen as a rampart against uh uh the uh against the likes of Donald Trump and and Vladimir Putin. So I think it’s both really. I think um um the fifth republic used to work in uh another with another public opinion uh another France to be honest in the 50s and 60s and 70s. Today I’m not sure it works anymore because today we have this tripartite opinion with people on the left people. So since the second world war you’ve had two constitutions. You had the fourth republic where you had 25 governments in 12 years. It was but it was it was the power was with parliament and there were lots of coalitions. Yeah. And the president was weak. So basically and then you had doul come in and now strong executive. Yeah. So it’s worked for some time. So which which will what’s next? Yeah. Well, I think I don’t see a sixth republic being anything but uh um a fourth republic in revival to to to be honest. So uh I am not able to tell you there is a new solution with a new uh constitution that will help the country go back to stability. I don’t see that happening. I think Mron has also a responsibility because he’s behaved as a hyper president using all the powers that he could and now that he’s dissolved he keeps thinking he can govern the country. He hasn’t uh I know how to say that but he hasn’t given up on on governing the country and he’s tried again and again to still be a fifth republic the go-l like president. So um the future is very open and I’m not sure constitutional law gets the solution to the problem France has at the moment. All right and this vote of confidence is on Monday. Two days later, there’s a call to mobilize which started on Facebook and other social media. Kind of like the 2019 yellow vest movement. We don’t know, Damiano, uh if what’s going to happen on September 10th is going to be something or nothing. We do know trade unions have also called for strike actions a week later. Um but how much of an appetite do the French have right now for uh mobilizing in the streets and and marching and striking? The big question indeed is if the the movement that is going to happen on on September 10 is going to be like the yellow vest that is very grassroot movement that was a big tent. You know, there was obviously a lot of leftwing and trade unionist elements, but also a lot of ordinary citizen that were not usually politicized and also some elements from populist, right-wing and far right. And the the we we have seen uh in 2023 during the the pension reform debate that the oneoff days of actions and strikes and protests were not very effective. But if you have a general strike that can last over time, obviously that can be a real game. Does France feel like a general strike right now? But I think right now there is a real possibility that a lot of people are exhausted and they cannot possibly afford such a huge huge movement. So it is yet to to see if the it’s going to be the the like the the yellow vest again or if going to be a lot of occasional days of strike and protest and that will be probably less effective to to change the situation. Has Franu succeeded with this vote of confidence scheduling it two days before this day of action on September the 10th? has he succeeded in perhaps uh killing the momentum of uh it could it could deflect the the movement if there is a movement at all. We don’t know yet. It’s it appeared in social media on the far right by very tiny groups on the far right. Uh it’s been spread through a lot of bots u partly Russian bots and uh it’s emerged in the public debate because some people on the left did take that movement uh and they did try to surf on this movement as we say in France. they try to, you know, capitalize on that movement and to uh play with it, but it’s not possible to play uh really with it since it’s non-existent for the moment. It’s only social media. We will see that on September 10th. My guess is it won’t be a big thing and maybe we will have trouble later on because it started something nonetheless. And the truth is the people in France are, as you say, exhausted. They are also very angry and they have been angry for a lot of time. That’s why we have so big populist movements nowadays. It’s because of all this anger. And basically, if you want to sum it up, either you are the leader of the popular anger, you able to do something with it politically, you can capitalize on the anger like Trump is doing or other populist leaders are doing or you will be uh at the bottom of the anger. You will be the target of this anger. Well, actually reality the reality of this movement is quite far from what you are describing because I’m only stating the facts. I’m not the whole the whole of the summer there there have been citizens assembly there’s been four um in the department that I represent is with real life people about a hundred at each gathering talking about their problems and I think it’s really harmful to um kind of dismiss every popular movement at each time that people try to get together and voice was born on the far right that’s only the truth and that’s the fact there were multiple it was as all grass as all grassroots movement the points of uh from which it starts are always very diverse. There were some some that started on the far right. If you look at the political color and the ideas that are in a majority in the movement right now that is very active and that is re very real with real citizens behind. Um it’s mostly left-wing uh ideas, multiple ideas also about regaining power uh as a people uh making their voice heard. And I really think it’s uh harmful to dismiss this as some kind of Russian uh that’s a problem with the populism. It’s always at the very basis of populism. There are true people true problems. The outcome of what is being done with all that is so dire. what we see in the US the outcome of populism is so direian anything people turned up people turned up in this in these citizen assembly why do you think the Russians are struggling to meet and meets making meets because they are fed up with the situation one at a time one time many reasons to be fed up um so they have a legitimacy and you can’t just say oh it’s the far right that are manipulating them or it’s Russia that is manipulating them I think um If we are serious about democracy then we’ve got to trust people have a critical mind of their own can vote and be know that what what they want to vote and um this comes back to the problem we have with Emanuel Mum who um on the evening of the 7th of July just said basically oh the French people didn’t vote right then I’ll just ignore it and carry on with my policies and this is what is harming democracy. So, we’re running short on time, so I want to go around the room quickly. So, short answers, please, to answer the question that’s on the screen. Should Europe worry? Clan, you go first. Um, I think Europe has and European countries have many reasons to worry uh given the should they worry about Oh, about about France. Um, I think that we’re entering uh a phase of instability that could be resolved um in one fairly simple way. uh is the resignation of Emanuel M the call to new presidential elections which would set a new pathway a new brand of policies in our country and that’s the only way forward I can see we’re going to stay in this conundrum for a long time if we don’t go down this pathway at least until 2027 and if we believe what was in that clip uh Demier of Emanuel M saying he’s not resigning then the answer for for Kjun is clearly yes so Should Europe worry? I think Europe should worry uh about France, but I think the the the real solution for France right now is to finally learn to trust parliamentary deliberation and to not rely on presidentialism. Is that still possible? I think it is possible. I mean before before the fifth republic, French relied a lot on parliamentary deliberation. It was not always effective, but it was a parliamentary system. So political culture can change and I think France really needs to learn to be a real parliamentary system. Again before I ask you the question the outset of the conversation Chevrolet gave us one of the uh possible reasons why uh Franu decided to uh um to call this uh vote of confidence was he was thinking about his legacy. Well, the country France lionizes lovable losers that stand on principle. And there’s often been there’s been a lot the past week references to he was a center-left prime minister in the 1950s. Pierre Mendes France who chose to fall on his sword over his consiliatory stand on uh the war of independence in Algeria and his call for a joint European defense. all this talk about uh for young people is somebody who’s perhaps forgotten Pman the this this fourth republic politician uh everybody wants to be um the new modest France in French politics and they want to be manages to the guy whose government falls but everybody likes yes but the guy who takes the moral high ground right and I would second what Damian just said I can be short on my answer what France needs now is a parliamentary government on Europe would be happy with that. All right. So Europe should worry unless parliamentary politics plays out. The president needs to get that the parliament has to do his job and the president has to you know not resign but recede and let other people decide what should be done. that would be the best thing to to come and uh if we Europe has very has a lot of reasons to be worried about the French situation because if we have a populist government it will be pro-Russian and it could change the face of Europe for a long period to come and we don’t wish for that we’ll have to leave it there unfortunately much more to talk about I want to thank you I want to thank as well Denjan thank you for being with us here in the France 24 debate [Music]

As Europe goes back to school, it already had plenty on its plate. Now – on top of inflation, extreme weather, the AI race, Russian threats and a no-longer-so-friendly United States, it’s got a new worry: France.
#macron #bayrou #confidencevote

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