Catherine Field: France Correspondent on France's new coalition government and the mood towards them

There’s scepticism over how well the surprise winners of France's parliamentary election will work together.  

The left wing New Popular Front coalition beat out the centrist Ensemble party and far-right National Rally, who had been hopefuls after a successful first round of voting just over a week ago. 

French Correspondent Catherine Field told Andrew Dickens the NPF has been together all day just trying to decide who will lead their negotiations.  

She says she'd have very little confidence in them, adding they're made up of such a wide range of left-wing opinions.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
After France we go. Catherine Field, welcome.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Back, Good morning again. Andrew.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
We were talking yesterday and we were talking about the NFP,
which is the party that one of the most votes,
and that is the new coalition. And I didn't realize
at the time they've only been together for a couple
of months. They came together where Macron called the election,
but then I found out they had been together before,
but they collapsed spectacularly. So should we so tell me
about this place? Should we have any confidence in the NFP?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh, oh, that's mean run to start with, Andrew, I
would have very little confidence in them, to be honest, Andrew.
First of all, they're from such a wide range of
left wing opinions. You've got right on the far left,
You've got the Communist Party, which to be true, has
always had a place in French society and in French Parliament.

(00:47):
You've then got the France Unvald, which has got the
very radical far left leader Jean mc MELINCHEANMP who goes
around calling him everyone comrades and says the first thing
he's going to do when he gets into power is
by decree and put the pension age down to sixty
and raise a minimum wage. You then got the more
sort of center left Socialist Party, which you are far

(01:11):
more steady hand on the tiller, and then you've got
even further, sort more towards the centery, you've got the Greens.
So sometimes it's a wonder they can even agree on
what the time of day is. They've been together all
day trying to figure out who's going to be their
leader for the negotiations, to be prime minister.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
So oh, okay, okay, they don't have a leader for
the negotiations. They're going to come up with the prime ministers.
It's going to come from the NFP. So tell me
about the prime Minister of because this was the great question,
you say, the prime minister of France, where are we
at with all of that?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Okay, Well, the old prime minister, Gabriella tal thirty five
years old, who's been prime minister since Genuary. He will
stay on as caretaker, and what President Macun is doing
is hoping that he will stay there. He will help
lead the country through the Olympic Games and get us
over to the other side of the big holidays that
France has, and then they'll start perhaps looking for who's

(02:05):
going to take over. I think the main thing to
look at there, Andrew, is that Emmanuel macaron is clearly
playing a much longer game. He's leaving it to the
other parties to sort of fight it out, put their
plans together and then come to him and open sort
of negotiations. He has said nothing. We did expect him
to say something, anything at all, really would have been

(02:28):
welcome for some parts of the electorate. And of course
on Wednesday he will put off to the NATO summuch
in Washington, So we're not really expecting him to sort
of upset the apple cart at the moment and just
leave everything in goodlock.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Okay. Meanwhile, on the right, Jordan Badilla, he was taking
the blame for a while and then he wasn't taking
the blame for the while, and that they didn't get
to where they wanted to be. But he's already got
a new job.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
He has. This was a very interesting one. It was
just announced to day, but apparently it had been in
the works. He was actually last month elect to the
European Parliament and he was their poster boy for that campaign.
Now he has teamed up with the new far right
grouping the grouping that's known as Patriots for Europe with
some of the more far right parties in the European Parliament.

(03:16):
He's going to be their lead man. Now what this
means really is he will as the head of that
grouping that's the third largest grouping in the European Parliament.
He will get more time to speak in Parliament. Because
there's such a big group, he will be able to
every time he's a guest speaker, he will then be
able to get up and talk for however long he
wishes about a particular issue. And more importantly, because they

(03:39):
are such a big group twelve twelve different nations of
MP's MEPs in this group eighty four lawmakers, they will
get more money. And that is what's important when you're
in Europe, and when you're a political party that's really
on its uppers, is you need money. So they will
get that money. But what's more interesting, thanks to all
that Andrew, is they've spent the last couple of weeks

(04:02):
saying that they are their own masters. They are not
pro Russia. They are just looking at what's useful for Europe.
And now here we see them joining up with Patricks
for Europe, which is a very pro Russia party in
the European Parliament, and of course the leader overall leader
is the Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Auburn, who is the

(04:22):
most pro Russia pro China leader in Europe.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Okay, what a pleasure and thank you so much. Catherine
Field out of Paris, France. For more from the Mic
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