The long wait for a new Prime Minister • FRANCE 24 English

welcome to a week in France our Saturday Roundup of French news this is our first edition after the summer holiday and it comes as France is gearing up for the back to school fall period known as the rre a time of new beginnings but with France still yet to get a new government nearly two months after snap parliamentary elections essentially led to a three-way tie between the leftwing center right and Far Right blocks the country remains in political deadlock despite the left having largest group Emanuel macron rejected their prime minister candidate Lucy caste and has continued consultations to come up with an alternative well to talk through it all I'm joined by Andrew nap emirus professor of French politics and contemporary history at the University of reading thank you so much for joining us today good afternoon now Emanuel maon has no legal deadline to name a new prime minister do you think he's intentionally dragging this out and and if so why would that be well if you look at the arithmetic even with the best will in the world let be nice to M for a moment even with the best will in the world he's got a very tough job on his hands if you look at the left first of all there are 577 seats in the National Assembly if you look at the left they've got 193 of them that means they would need about nearly 100 more to get a majority majority then if you look at macon's people the three groupings that together make up his supporters at the center of the political Spectrum they've got fewer they've got 166 seats so they would need well over 100 they'd need over 120 to from somewhere to to win a majority even if they teamed up with the moderate right well the moderate right only have 47 seats so Center plus moderate right you've only got 213 that's still way short of a majority and then if you look finally at the far right and its friends well they've got 142 so they are uh about they'd have to double that rather more than double that to win a majority then there are a few wild cards there are people from the overseas departs and territories who make up um about 29 Al together so that really making up a majority out of those disparate groupings is bound to be very difficult especially as so far no one's in the Parliamentary groupings have rarely has rarely budged and said well we' be happy to make up a coalition with X or with Y um we can we think we have some elements of their program which we can uh share matar's people were indeed defeated in the Parliamentary elections they lost a lot of seats but they remain very important simply because they are at the center of the political Spectrum it's it seems to me very very hard indeed to imagine any sort of governing majority that doesn't include a chunk of the maon people so there we are for the moment I don't think mall has made his life very much easier by saying well the far left the um left France unbowed Le grouping 72 parliamentarians um notionally led by Jean luk melanon um very shouty farle politician um maon sort of practically ruled them out of the spectrum of acceptable uh Republican partners and that I think he could have avoided he didn't have to do that but even without that Gest he's got he's got a very hard job on his hands and it is I'm bound to say a dangerous situation I know that a while ago people made fun of the belgians because they didn't have have a government for 6 months but Belgium is a federal um state so that a lot of the work actually is done by the different components of the Federation um whereas France is very much a centralized State and it's got significant problems at the moment it's got serious unrest in new calonia and it's got to put together a budget which is likely to be a very unpopular budget because at the moment they're running a deficit of about 5% of GDP in itself that's a bit dangerous and it's certainly uh unacceptable to the European Union so that even a government with a stable majority would have difficulty putting together a budget that doesn't bring people out on the streets or cause serious discontent to its voters yeah I do want to talk more about the consequences of this situation because the polling Institute ipsos released a study this week on the impact macron's calling for SNAP elections has had on the French public they found that 67% of respondents believe his decision has had a negative effect on France do you think all of this uh what kind of consequences rather do you think all this is going to have on voters very faith in France's electoral and governing systems well successive polls have also showed a significant minority I think around 35% you're saying saying what France really needs is a strong leader who doesn't need to bother about parliaments or elections or democracy or any of that stuff um I would be surprised if that number had not grown over the course of the summer because this is just the sort of Deadlock that um enhances a sense of a plague on all their houses among voters who are not interested in and exasperated in politics this is therefore going to be rather good for the far right which has spent the summer being almost invisible but I suspect will'll be racking up some support in polls and eventually in elections to come so um and I think the far right is considerably more dangerous than the far left the far right would like to suspend a lot of the checks and balances um in the French governmental system at the moment it's no friend of the Constitutional Council it's no friend of the European Court of Human Rights it's no friend of the public sector broadcasting system so that I think once you throw away democracy and or once you hand power over to the far right there's no immediate Prospect of that at the moment it's going to be quite hard to get it back so I I think the consequences are potentially very negative and a lot of people are now uh disconcerted dis enchanted with the workings of French democracy yeah it certainly is a tricky and dangerous situation now despite the divisive political situation though a spirit of unity and sportsmanship could return to France at least temporarily because the paralympic games opened this week in Paris now Wednesday's opening ceremony saw over 4,000 athletes parade down the sh to de la conord hundreds of artists with and without disabilities danc together seamlessly with a standout performance from French singer lucky love the paralympic committee president said he hoped the games would launch an inclusion Revolution Beyond Sports the ceremony ended with the relighting of the iconic cauldron in the twery gardens that is back to taking its nightly hot air balloon ride over the city and the paralympic flame also made an appearance at this year's commemorations for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Paris the ceremony and military parade took place in the south of the city where the first Allied soldiers actually entered Paris on the night of August 24th 1944 the little known group of Fighters was from the ninth company known as LA because the majority of them were Spanish Andrew nap I want to come back to you you are somewhat of a specialist in French history what was on your mind as you watched this year's commemorations well it was indeed you referred to um a moment of unity for the French um during the Olympic and Par Olympic Games and there's certainly um a terrific moment of unity in that parade down the Shan on the 26th of August 1944 the charal the uh founder of the current fifth Republic but very much at the head of that parade um but there's a terrific sense of Joy if you watch any of the footage of of that moment um and deal himself in his Memoirs said France had really come together France France's heart was beating as one um the comparison is also interesting because of course it was actually a lot more complicated than that Deal's relations with his British and American Allies were at times very very tense but also the gal's relationship with the internal French Resistance in which the Communists were very very strong was um also quite tense and at the end of August deal very abruptly told the resistance leaders right um your job's over you can now go back to your civilian employment or you can sign up and join the regular army and one of them said afterwards I've seen in gratitude in my time but that rarely took the biscuit so there's a lot going on there that um wasn't obvious on the surface of 26th August what the go was doing around now 80 years ago interestingly among other things was lunching with literary figures um it's interesting in that he viewed the rebuilding of France's hard power France's Armed Forces as very very important but he also always had a line on soft power he was interested genuinely interested in French culture and saw it as a regain as a way to regain France's standing in the world well given his interest in soft power he would have loved the fact that Paris is hosting the Paro Olympics and thep Olympics Andrew nap I'm afraid we're going to have to leave it there thank you again so much for joining us uh that is it for a week in France that was Andrew nap joining us there emirus professor of French politics and contemporary history at the University of reading uh it's been a pleasure thanks to all of you for watching there is more news coming up on France 24 in just a moment [Music]