The Duran Podcast - Macron's new Prime Minister, die hard EU believer

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

Macron's new Prime Minister, die hard EU believer

All right, Alexander, let's do an update on what has happened in France. We have a new prime minister, and we're going to have a new cabinet. And Macron is going to try to remain as president to keep the administration going for at least at a minimum 10, 11 months, or maybe all the way up to, what is it, 27 when the next elections are scheduled. So Macron, it looks like he's pulling it off. It looks like he's going to pull it off. And he's going to prevent another Barnier situation from happening because he is, according

the socialist crowd that was aligned with Melanchom. So what do you see going on in France? What's the outlook like? Who is this Baru, Bayou, Prime Minister? It doesn't seem he's very popular amongst the left, but what is your take of him? Right. François Barreux is somebody who has been one of these perennial figures in French politics that's been floating around for ages.

He goes all the way back to the 1990s and even a little bit before. If you've been following French politics, as I sporadically do, he's a name that always comes up. And he's a very typical French figure of the sort you tend to find in French politics. He's different from, you know, the main part of the French political class, the people who've been to the various grand de corps, who graduated from the Ecole Nacional de administration, who monopolized the big positions in Paris and all of that. So he's different from them. He comes to him a rural background from a place in the provinces.

He's sort of done local jobs like a teacher. He was a teacher at one time. He gradually rose up French politics. He has very, very vague political opinions. Sometimes he's lent a bit to the right, sometimes he's lent a bit to the left. He's always there in the French National Assembly. He's always there in French politics. He always plays a role creating coalition arrangements.

If you know French history, you'll find plenty of people like this, people who come from the regions, who have a strong regional base, who have, as I said, very flexible principles, political principles. Pauls, Pierre Laval, the former French Prime Minister of the 1930s, who became an arch collaborationist during the Vichy period of the German occupation. He was a bit like this, just to say, I know people are going to push back against me a little when I said that. But in some ways, this is the sort of type of politician that Bayou is, and of course he would not like to be associated or compared to Laval.

But anyway, there he is. So he's that kind of a person. Now, to the extent that he has any particular political beliefs, he is an ardent fanatical supporter for the European Union, I seem to remember him saying about 20 years ago that the European Union was the most beautiful creation that there has ever been in the history of the world or something like that. I mean, he said something on that kind of scale. On everything else, he's flexible. So he's a practicing Catholic who wants France to be secular.

His goal of these other things, but on the European issue, he is an absolute fervid believer in the European project, as of course Macron is. He is a dolly heart. He is absolutely dead center in French politics. He's an obvious person for Macron to make prime minister. Now, Macron and Bayou go back very far. There are some stories, reports that Bayou actually sponsored Macron at the outset of Macron's career. He's a much older man.

And there are also some reports that Macron wasn't particularly keen to appoint him prime minister, that Bayroux basically threatened Macron, that unless he was appointed Prime Minister, he would pull out of Macron's party, taking his own little group of supporters with him. By the law, I should say, he's been a member of many different parties at many different times. Put all that aside, put aside who he is. I've told you what he stands for, put aside his background, his history, that kind of thing. The key thing to understand is that we had an election in France in the summer. It showed a surge to the right.

It showed strong support for the left. It showed a collapse of the centre. So we're going to get yet another prime minister who is at. the centre, another Prime Minister who is an ardent supporter of European integration and ultimately of the globalist project. And this time, the plan that Macron hatched back in the summer, which we've discussed in many programs, the plan to try to get the Socialist Party in particular, which is part of Melanchon's grouping, to break from Melanchon's grouping, to break from Melancho's Melanchon and to support this new government, that plan looks like it's about to be realized.

So we are going to end up with another government at the centre, supported by a party that claims to be on the left. The Greens look like they're going to be part of this as well. The rump of French Communist Party, which still exists, might also be pulled in. It's going to be a party led by a political figure with a very sketchy and amorphous principles. And France is going to be governed again exactly as it was. Plus does it change? Plus they're the same. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

and even if Macron does have some issues with Baru, even if the two don't particularly get on, you're absolutely right. If this sticks, if this comes together, Macron will remain president, he will remain an overall charge. He will be able to continue his project, such as it is, and nothing in France will have changed. Politico is reporting that Le Pen and Bardella are also signaling that they're positive to Baidu. What do you make of that? It doesn't surprise me, actually, because, well, first of all,

there's always been these issues about how radical a figure ultimately Le Pen and Le Pen really is, whether she does actually represent the big break with the centrist, European, globalist policies that we've seen. But put that aside, Le Pen is playing exactly the same game that she played previously with Barnier. Barnier was appointed Prime Minister by McRole. Le Pen said that she wasn't immediately objecting to him. Barnier fought his government. She presented his budget. And that That was the moment when Le Pen said, this is unacceptable, and it will, you know, and that she ordered her party to vote in the no-confidence motion, and that was what brought Barnier down.

It looks to me as if Le Pen is making exactly the same calculations. And there are even better reasons why she should, because she's not going to join this coalition. She's not going to be part of Pairoo's grue thing. The socialists and the Greens will be more so. So in a sense, create another government, allow Byrude to form that government, get the Greens involved, get the Socialists involved. The government will presumably carry out tax rises and spending cuts and all of that.

Le Pen can then eventually come round and oppose it. And in the meantime, the Socialists and the Greens and all of those, the establishment parties, in other words, become further discredited. So you could see that there might be tough-minded political calculations about this. Always, however, keeping in mind that we don't really know how radical the figure Le Penh herself ultimately is. The key takeaway from all of this is that the people of France, in two elections this year, voted for change and it's not come. Yeah, it's not coming. All right.

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