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00:00For more, we can speak to our French politics editor, Mark Perlman.
00:02Mark, I'm not going to ask you about the composition.
00:04We just saw in that report a lot of speculation.
00:06Could you at least explain to us why it's taking so long?
00:09Why it's taking so long?
00:10Because we're in uncharted territory,
00:13because this has been a very unusual snap election
00:16with a fractured National Assembly
00:20and an unlikely prime minister, Michel Barnier, hails from a group
00:24that has less than 10 percent of the seats
00:27of the National Assembly after this election.
00:31And so he has been trying for over two weeks now,
00:34it's a record, under the Fifth Republic, to form a government,
00:39not only with members of his conservative party,
00:43not only with Emmanuel Macron's party, but trying to enlarge it
00:46as much as possible, because as the president told him
00:49when he appointed him,
00:50he wanted to have a government representing really the nation.
00:55And that's been an issue.
00:56Why? Because the left, even people who were deemed central left,
01:01said, no, thank you, we won't get into this government.
01:04And so he has tried to lure them and say, OK, I'm going to wait.
01:09I'm going to maybe take some measures that you will like on the environment,
01:13on taxes and so on.
01:15But it hasn't worked.
01:16And so now he decided yesterday that enough was enough
01:20and that he would bring together essentially the right
01:24and Macron's center party and its allies
01:28and try to cobble together government.
01:30But even that is proving to be complicated
01:34because the first draft that Michel Barnier gave
01:38was too heavy with his members of his party.
01:41And the president, Emmanuel Macron, said that's not going to work.
01:44You know, my party obviously didn't win the election,
01:48but we have twice as many MPs than you have with the Conservative Party.
01:52And so this is why there was a lot of back and forth,
01:55even maybe some also some false drama when there were reports
02:00that Michel Barnier had had enough, that he wanted to hand in his resignation
02:05two days ago.
02:06Now they've reached a compromise.
02:08Yesterday night, there was a meeting between Emmanuel Macron,
02:11Michel Barnier at the presidential palace, the Elysée.
02:14Michel Barnier presented him the list of 38 ministers.
02:19And we just saw a report about the main ones on this.
02:22Now we're hearing that there are still some adjustments being made.
02:27A government reshuffle lasts until the very last second.
02:32Some ministers have said they were chosen or called really
02:36within the last hour before previous governments were announced.
02:40So there's still lots of back and forth.
02:42And there's also a process whereby all the potential ministers
02:47are being vetted by the High
02:52Institute for the Transparency of Public Life.
02:56It was created a few years ago to make sure that you paid your taxes,
03:00that you don't have legal troubles, to make sure that after appointing
03:03a minister, the prime minister finds himself with a controversy and so on.
03:08So this takes at least one or two days,
03:11which is why, to probably answer your question,
03:15the government will very likely be announced either tomorrow,
03:19Saturday or Sunday, but probably not today, Friday.
03:22At some point, we're going to see this list.
03:24At some point, presumably, we will have this cabinet.
03:27But we can be sure that the political headache is far from over here in France.
03:32Yes, because when the leaked list of ministers came out,
03:37which is rather unusual already,
03:39because normally it's a tightly held secret,
03:43the left has said, wait a minute,
03:46we were ahead in the snap elections
03:51and this is a right wing government.
03:54And they're adding to that a right wing government
03:58clearly under the threat or under the watch, if you want, of the national rally.
04:04Why? Because the national rally has to accept the government in parliament
04:09because if the national rally decides to join hands with the left
04:12and vote a motion of the confidence, this government falls immediately
04:17because the mathematics are very easy.
04:19But that would be strange bedfellows.
04:21Yes, that would be strange bedfellows.
04:23But yes, obviously.
04:24But the left is saying this is a government that's already pretty much
04:29a center right, if not a right wing government when you watch the ministers.
04:33And in addition, it has an implicit alliance with the national rally.
04:38So this is why you're already hearing lots of protests from the left.
04:43And this shows that it's going to be very, very difficult
04:46for this new government, first of all, to stay alive.
04:50And then the first hurdle, and it's a big hurdle, is the budget.
04:54The budget was supposed to be voted on October 1st.
04:57Well, this is the day Michel Barnier will give his policy speech before parliament.
05:01So we're already running late on this crucial budget.
05:04Mark, thank you very much, Mark.