Economy and Finance Minister, France - Bruno Le Maire
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2019
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur is in Paris for an exclusive interview with the country’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. The political and economic mood in France has shifted dramatically in a few short months. Last summer President Macron was pushing ahead with his reform agenda claiming that France was back. Now he is besieged by critics, forced into retreat by the Yellow Vest movement and grappling with problems inside and outside the EU. Has the Macron moment already passed?
(Photo: Bruno Le Maire leaves after the weekly cabinet meeting at the Elysee palace in Paris. (Credit: Francois Guillot/AFP)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:07.0 | Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World |
| 0:14.1 | Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today has the background of an archetypal member of the French elite, and yet he is a key member |
| 0:23.1 | of a government pledged to transform France by breaking down old barriers and unleashing |
| 0:30.5 | untapped potential. Bruno Le Maire is finance minister in the government tasked with enacting |
| 0:36.9 | President Emmanuel Macron's ambitious reform agenda. |
| 0:41.3 | Le Maire, an experienced bureaucrat turned centre-right politician, threw in his lot with Macron in 2017. |
| 0:49.6 | Over the past year and a half, Le Maire has been at the heart of efforts to cut taxes, reduce government |
| 0:56.1 | spending and deliver a more open, deregulated French economy. For a while, the young French |
| 1:02.8 | President appeared to be winning his battles. But late last year, a protest movement known as the |
| 1:08.8 | Gilles-Jolene, the yellow vests, swept the country. |
| 1:12.8 | Amid street protests and violence, the government was forced to reverse several key policies. |
| 1:18.5 | And now the Macron transformation of France seems to have stalled. |
| 1:23.3 | So too, his grand ambitions to reshape the EU and offer the world an antidote to populism. |
| 1:30.2 | So, is it time to ask what went wrong? Well, Bruno Le Maire joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. |
| 1:38.0 | Minister, I think we have to start with Brexit. Right now, Britain is in the deepest of political crises. |
| 1:45.0 | There is no viable solution to the Brexit problem. |
| 1:49.0 | How worried is France by the uncertainty that you see in London? |
| 1:56.0 | We are worried, of course, and we are waiting for a clarification coming from the British government and the |
| 2:03.6 | British majority so that we can have a fair Brexit. We are all waiting for a fair Brexit, which would be both in the interest of the UK, the British people and the EU. But now it's up to the British government to give |
| 2:20.9 | us all the clarification that are needed. They cannot give you clarification because in the Westminster |
| 2:28.9 | Parliament there is complete confusion, no agreement whatsoever on what is the next step in Brexit. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.