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00:00Let's cross now to Sophie Lamotte who's at the Greens headquarters here in Paris.
00:03Sophie, who is set to become the new Popular Front's candidate for Prime
00:08Minister? And there's certainly growing talk, isn't there, of Marine Tendelier
00:12being one of the leading candidates.
00:16Who will be the next Prime Minister? That's the million-dollar question. It's
00:21going to be really way too early to tell unfortunately, but we did run into Marine
00:27Tendelier herself just a few minutes ago. She just went inside the
00:30headquarters and she said that she'd been working since last night. They've
00:34been working from the moment that they got the results yesterday, overnight. We
00:40spoke to some other party members who said they were working until 3 to 4
00:44a.m. They were working early this morning, making calls, speaking with
00:48different parties, speaking with different candidates, individual
00:51candidates to see who they could potentially have build alliances with,
00:56form coalitions with. But what was quite striking and what she said is that it's
01:02not a question of who they might build alliances with, but rather what for,
01:06really focusing on their program. We also spoke to, sorry, we also spoke to
01:13Sandrine Rousseau just a few minutes earlier who said the same thing. Their
01:17program is going to be the most important thing to defend. So they'll be
01:20building alliances with that in mind, notably the idea of raising the minimum
01:26wage, fighting discrimination. They also mentioned free education, which is one of
01:31their promises, and they are really working towards making sure that will
01:36happen in Parliament over the next few months. So everybody, every party, because
01:41as a reminder, in the New Popular Front, there's four different parties who are
01:45working individually, have come together to build this coalition. Each of them are
01:49working individually on internal discussions, and they're going to meet
01:53later together to discuss who might be the next Prime Minister and how they
01:57might elect, select that next Prime Minister. Some people are calling for a
02:03vote within the coalition. Others are saying that they want to see the party
02:07that got the most seats in Parliament, they want to see their leader take the
02:12seat of Prime Minister. In any case, what a lot of leaders from these parties have
02:19agreed on is that it should happen soon. Marie-Antoinette de Lis herself said it
02:22would take some time, not too much, but it will take some time. And we're hoping
02:26to see that Prime Minister elected or selected by the end of the week.
02:31So good, the motto there. Thank you. Now joining me in the studio is Mark
02:34Perelman, French politics editor who's barely had any sleep, I imagine, in the
02:38last 24 hours. Let's start with the fact that France has had no experience with
02:45coalitions since the Fourth Republic back in the 1950s, unlike Italy or
02:49Germany or Belgium. So it's politicians, and certainly as we see there, and given
02:54what's going on with the alliance and the tussling for power, they're sort
02:59of finding themselves in uncharted territory, aren't they? Absolutely. And if
03:04you were watching another channel than France 24 yesterday night, French
03:09channels, you could see them getting at each other. And so, because that's the
03:13culture here. You have to impose yourself on your rival, impose your
03:18program, and not deal, concede, negotiate. And so, yes, this is a totally new
03:25ballgame for most politicians. And the system of the Fifth Republic was made,
03:32especially to avoid what happened during the Fourth Republic, meaning unstable
03:36governments that would fall one after the other, and so on. So the idea was to
03:41have stability, and that's what you've largely had for the past decades or so.
03:47Emmanuel Macron's decision to call for a snap election, which is essentially a
03:51midterm election during his mandate, is reshuffling all the cards, especially
03:56given the outcome we've had, because we have an outcome where we have three
04:01equivalent blocs in Parliament. Yes, the left came on top, Emmanuel Macron came
04:06second, the national rally came on third. This was a big surprise. But as a
04:10result, the magic number is 289. That's the absolute majority in Parliament. The
04:18leftist coalition has 182. So there are 107 seats shy from an absolute majority.
04:26So this means, in effect, they don't even have a relative majority in
04:31Parliament. So it's going to be very, very difficult. And there's no way a
04:35prime minister can function if he doesn't have at least, as our guest was
04:39saying, the tacit acceptance of the others. Maybe not to vote in favour, but
04:45maybe to abstain. But each vote will be a struggle and a potential danger of the
04:51government falling. So there has to be not only an agreement on one person, but
04:57at least on the minimum programme that this government can carry out during the
05:03legislature. But obviously, this is going to be very, very difficult.
05:06Maybe they all need to read The Art of Compromise, Marc. But from what I
05:10understand, under the Constitution, the President is not obliged to pick a
05:15leader from the largest bloc. Is that right?
05:17No, he's not obliged. But this has been the custom. And so it would be very
05:21strange for Emmanuel Macron to tell the leader or someone from another bloc,
05:27well, I ask you, at least as the first person to try to form a government, the
05:33logic would be that he would ask the leftist alliance, do you have a
05:38candidate? Clearly, we're seeing that they're struggling to find one or to
05:43agree on one, and then see if that person can cobble together a majority or at
05:48least a minority that can survive in Parliament. But maybe through
05:54discussions, they will come up with someone else. I mean, he could come up
05:58with someone who's not a member of a political party, but a respected figure
06:04from civil society and so on, to be more creative.
06:07A technocratic government?
06:09Technocratic government, that's also a possibility. That's not, obviously, the
06:14first choice. But that's what you could end up with. Because if there is no clear
06:20majority and no clear person who can really be a consensual prime minister,
06:25well, he might have to look for someone else.