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Speaker 1: Right to France. We go casine morning, good morning, mate.

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Speaker 1: In a moment of high drama, you come in at

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Speaker 1: exactly the right moment. Barnie is doing what he's calling

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Speaker 1: people's bluff or or not.

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Speaker 2: Well rolling the diece, I would say, and it's a

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Speaker 2: pretty loaded dice. Yeah. Of course. The French Prime Minister,

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Speaker 2: who has been in office what two and a half months,

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Speaker 2: put forward the social security budget Bill into Parliament today

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Speaker 2: after spending the whole weekend going to and fro with

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Speaker 2: Marine Leapenn, the leader of the largest block in the Parliament,

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Speaker 2: at the far right National rally. They had, honestly, Mike,

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Speaker 2: they'd spent the weekend kind of like kids, you know,

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Speaker 2: just one last thing, just one last thing, one last time.

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Speaker 2: She almost got everything she wanted and then in the

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Speaker 2: end the Prime Minister said no, there could be no

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Speaker 2: more giving way, no more presence from this budget. The

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Speaker 2: French economy is really in a bad way. This part

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Speaker 2: of the budget had to go through. He knew he

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Speaker 2: wasn't going to get it through Parliament, so pushed it

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Speaker 2: through with that vote, which you know is taking the

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Speaker 2: Constitution to the limit he can do. But if you

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Speaker 2: do that in France. The constitution then allows parliament to

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Speaker 2: have a no confidence vote, and the far left and

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Speaker 2: the far right, which make up the bulk of parliament,

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Speaker 2: they have now put forward that no confidence and that

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Speaker 2: motion will be heard on Wednesday. It's a hostile parliament, Mike.

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Speaker 2: They want to see his back. As he left the chamber,

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Speaker 2: they were calling out.

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Speaker 1: Oh oh, does he win it or not? And if

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Speaker 1: he doesn't, literally, what happens.

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Speaker 2: Well, if he wins it, he just moves on to

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Speaker 2: the next fight, which will be later that day. This

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Speaker 2: is only part of the budget. He still needs to

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Speaker 2: get the rest of the budget through. He still needs

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Speaker 2: to save what's at about one hundred and seven billion

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Speaker 2: New Zealand dollars off next year's budget, so he will

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Speaker 2: just if he wins this one, he just goes on

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Speaker 2: to the next battle the next day. Well, so you

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Speaker 2: know what happens if he loses, well, the government falls.

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Speaker 2: We then have a caretaker government and then the president's

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Speaker 2: manual Macron tries to find a new government. What will

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Speaker 2: happen though, let's say this case scenario would be financial

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Speaker 2: and political uncertainty. The bond markets are already walking away

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Speaker 2: from French debt the cost of French debt is just

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Speaker 2: so high at the moment, so it would just be

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Speaker 2: a real problem not just for France financially, but also

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Speaker 2: for the Eurozone, because don't forget, France is one of

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Speaker 2: twenty countries that shares the Euro And as they say, Mike,

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Speaker 2: you know, when the bond market walks, then you've really

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Speaker 2: got a problem.

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Speaker 1: And this was the thing we were talking this time

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Speaker 1: seven days ago, Cas, when we were suggesting the word

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Speaker 1: Greece was going to be in play, and then all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, you're borrowing costs are at Greekly you

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Speaker 1: look like Greece. Is France embarrassed by this?

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Speaker 2: I don't think you know, Joe blogs in the streets embarrassed,

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Speaker 2: But certainly for some bizarre reason last week, my end

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Speaker 2: of last week standed in poor debt rating on France

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Speaker 2: didn't go down, it didn't get a negative rating. So

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Speaker 2: clearly there are some people around there who think that

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Speaker 2: this is the eurozone second largest economy. It can come

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Speaker 2: right difficult to see you in just some of these

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Speaker 2: figures we're looking at, Mike, manufacturing sector had the roughest

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Speaker 2: November since twenty twenty. Your weak demand, weak international demand.

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Speaker 2: It's all all the lights are flashing red. But for

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Speaker 2: some reason the Parliament is hostile and they say that. Essentially,

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Speaker 2: at the end of the day, Mike, what they were

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Speaker 2: saying is tax the rich, leave the less well off alone.

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Speaker 2: Because what they're arguing about, Mike, with things like what

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Speaker 2: you have to pay for prescriptions, what people had to

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Speaker 2: pay for the doctor. And the far left the far

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Speaker 2: right just turned around and said tax the rich. Well,

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Speaker 2: Macron's party says, no, don't tax the rich, don't put

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Speaker 2: taxes up.

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Speaker 1: Thanks you, hey, listen, let's in on a bright note.

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Speaker 1: I was watching a little bit of macrons tour the

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Speaker 1: other day of Notre Dame. This thing this weekend. Gosh,

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Speaker 1: it looks beautiful, doesn't it.

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Speaker 2: Isn't it stunning? And didn't they keep it a secret?

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Speaker 2: Making journalists are usually dreadful gossips, since some of those

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Speaker 2: who'd been in there and done the photos earlier said

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Speaker 2: nothing about what we were going to see. When he

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Speaker 2: went in there, it was gobsmacking. And we were also

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Speaker 2: told it was having going to be a few chapels

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Speaker 2: that were open, but it's going to be the whole

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Speaker 2: of the inside. It is going to be wonderful, apart

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Speaker 2: from the weather, it's going to rain, So questions of

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Speaker 2: being asked as did Macron know that when he went

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Speaker 2: in there it was going to be gorgeous skies. They

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Speaker 2: got the pictures, but this weekend's going to be really dreadful.

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Speaker 1: I reckon talk to you so Catherine Field in France,

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Speaker 1: and we haven't seen the pictures. He did a tour

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Speaker 1: and it really is just an astonishingly beautiful place and

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Speaker 1: a bunch of ceremonies coming up this weekend. Five years

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Speaker 1: on five years is how long it took them to

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Speaker 1: rebuild the whole place.

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Speaker 2: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 2: News Talks at B from six am weekdays, or follow

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