France's Macron hosts ex-presidents, ex-Socialist Cazeneuve amid PM search
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00:00Macron is trying to break through months of deadlock to find a new prime minister.
00:05France still has no permanent government, almost two months after the parliamentary
00:09election that ended up with no clear winner.
00:11Today Macron will be hosting two former French presidents, François Hollande from the left
00:16and Nicolas Sarkozy from the right.
00:18Also today he's sitting down with two potential candidates for prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve
00:23of the center-left and Xavier Bertrand of the center-right.
00:27France 24's Clovis Kozali is keeping a close eye on all of this now for us from the Elysée
00:30presidential palace.
00:31He joins me now from there.
00:33Clovis, the frontrunner in this race so far seems to be Bernard Cazeneuve, who has already
00:36been prime minister once before.
00:38He met with President Macron already today.
00:40Tell us a bit more about who he is and how likely it is he'll get the job.
00:45Well, Bernard Cazeneuve clearly is one of the favorites, if not the favorite.
00:52He comes from the left wing originally.
00:53He left the Socialist Party because he was in disagreement with his party line of conducting
01:00an alliance with the radical left, France en barre de Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
01:04And that's a point in common he's got with Emmanuel Macron.
01:07He doesn't want to see the radical left in government.
01:11Bernard Cazeneuve met for about an hour, 15 minutes with the French president here at
01:16the Elysée palace.
01:17When he left, he did the bise to the French president.
01:22Do you want to see any sign there?
01:23I'll leave you to it.
01:25It has to be said that the two men know each other extremely well.
01:29They were in government together under François Hollande.
01:31And the former French president, François Hollande, also met here with Emmanuel Macron,
01:37meeting face to face.
01:39Surely, Hollande told him that Cazeneuve is a good candidate.
01:42He has the experience.
01:44He was also, of course, the interior minister during the Paris attacks under François Hollande.
01:49Two other key meetings today, Nicolas Sarkozy, former French president, of course, from the
01:55right wing, and then Xavier Bertrand, centre-right politician, who could be also a prime minister.
02:03And let me tell you that there's a new name coming up in the last few minutes, and that
02:07is Thierry Baudet.
02:09He comes from the civil society.
02:11He's the president of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council.
02:16He's met several times with President Macron in the past.
02:20He's seen more towards the left, which could be a good sign for the left-wing bloc, the
02:26New Popular France.
02:27Thierry Baudet, who's also a former schoolteacher.
02:30Clivis, you mentioned former president Nicolas Sarkozy a moment ago.
02:34Also former president François Hollande from the left is meeting with President Macron
02:38today.
02:39I mean, what's the thinking there?
02:40Is Macron just looking for advice from his predecessors?
02:43Well, I don't know if he's really seeking for advice, but at least he's talking to them.
02:51And that's showing the French people that President Macron is ready to speak to the
02:56left, to the right, and also ready to get some kind of points of views from other senior
03:03politicians and, of course, former presidents.
03:06It is indeed significant.
03:10What is important here to understand for our viewers is that why is it, say, taking
03:14so long for President Macron to find a prime minister?
03:17Well, it's because no party has an outright majority, an absolute majority at the National
03:22Assembly, not even a bloc, not even the left-wing bloc, the New Popular Front that did finish
03:27ahead of all the others during the past snap elections.
03:31Therefore, any candidate, any potential prime minister runs the risk of not surviving a
03:37vote of no confidence at the National Assembly.
03:39And that's why it's important for the French president to talk to all political parties
03:43to see who they would potentially support back or at least vote for in the National
03:51Assembly once the prime minister is named.
03:54And, of course, you have the very important question of the budget.
03:57France needs to vote for its budget for 2025, and those talks are set to start early October.
04:04Really, time is running out for the French president.
04:07He needs to find a name extremely quickly, tomorrow, today maybe.
04:12We'll have to wait and see.
04:13All right, Clovis, thanks for that.
04:14That's our Clovis Casale at the Elysee Presidential Palace.