New French prime minister Michel Barnier delivers a speech during the handover ceremony, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024 in Paris. President Emmanuel Macron has named EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister after more than 50 days of caretaker government.
| Photo Credit: AP

Choosing conservative Michel Barnier as his Prime Minister, French President Emmanuel Macron has tasked the 73-year-old veteran politician with the tricky challenge of winning the confidence of a starkly divided National Assembly. Not a stranger to tackling sticky situations, the former EU chief negotiator accepted his role, saying, “There is a need for respect, appeasement and unity,” as the Left parties cry afoul over a ‘stolen election’.

Born on January 9, 1951, Mr. Barnier comes from humble origins in Southeast France’s La Tronche. Conservative ideals, stemmed during his teenage years in the right-wing Union for the Defence of the Republic (UDR) party, led Mr. Barnier to make his electoral debut in 1978, representing Savoie in the National Assembly. As an avid skier and hiker, Mr. Barnier is credited for bringing the Winter Olympics to his hometown, Savoie, in 1992.

Dubbed as a ‘well-grounded Republican’, Mr. Barnier has served as the Cabinet Minister of Environment (1993-95), European Affairs (1995-97), Foreign Affairs (2004-05) and Agriculture and Fisheries (2007-09) under four different conservative Prime Ministers. He has repeatedly voted for conservative choices like opposing decriminalisation of same sex relations among underage couples, abolishing capital punishment, which might win him the right-wing politicians favour in Parliament.

As the EU’s largest economy – the U.K. – chose to leave the bloc in 2016, Mr. Barnier, who had lost the race to be President of the European Commission to Jean-Claude Juncker in 2014, was tapped to negotiate the ‘Brexit’ deal. Hand-picked by Mr. Juncker for his methodical, cool-headed approach and his experience as the EU’s internal market commissioner (2010-14), Mr. Barnier negotiated with the U.K.’s changing leadership for its ‘costly and painful divorce’. After years of negotiations where he built consensus among the EU’s 27 members, he led the trade talks between the U.K. and the EU, which were finally ratified in 2020 and then was made in-charge of implementing it.

With the rising protests against Mr. Macron’s administration, Mr. Barnier once again turned his attention to French politics, vying a Presidential run as the Republican candidate in the 2022 French elections. Opposing Mr. Macron’s liberal policies, he called for tightening immigration restrictions in France, opening 20,000 new prison places and stringent sentencing for crimes and misdemeanours. While his political views were similar to far-right candidate Marin Le Pen, his economic views echo with Mr. Macron on cutting taxes, raising retirement age and promoting ease of business. His bid ended after he came third in the 2021 Republican Congress with a mere 23.93% votes.

Divided France

Since then, Mr. Barnier remained silent politically for three years till Mr. Macron called for snap elections in July this year after Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) defeated his Renaissance party in the European Parliament elections. In the elections, which were held in two rounds on June 30 and July 7 and Witnessed the highest turnout since 1981, no party won a majority. The leftwing New Popular Front (NPF) finished first with 182 seats, followed by Mr. Macron’s centrist RN.

Mr. Macron rejected the Left’s PM pick, 37-year-old socialist progressive Lucie Castets, claiming that “Institutional stability dictates that this option should not be retained”.

Seeking a consensus builder, Mr. Macron turned to Mr. Barnier with a view that the Brexit negotiator would not overturn his most significant policies and also win the far-right, conservative and centrist votes in the National Assembly. Mr. Barnier, whose appointment comes after 50 days of caretaker government headed by Gabriel Attal, took office on September 5 in the presence of his wife of 40 years, Isabelle Altmayer – a lawyer by profession – at the Prime Minister’s residence at Hôtel Matignon.

However, Mr. Barnier’s problems are far from over. His appointment has already been rejected by the Left. Its influential leader Jean-Luc Melenchon claimed that Mr. Barnier’s appointment flew in the face of the public mandate, asserting, “The election has been stolen”.

While there is no formal time limit for the President to pick a new Cabinet proposed by his Prime Minister, a new government is generally formed within days of the PM’s appointment. Avoiding toppling of his new government, Mr. Barnier must once again navigate political factions to strike a ‘balanced deal’.

French President Emmanuel Macron (L) poses with European Commission Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier prior to their meeting at the Elysee palace in Paris, on January 31, 2020. Michel Barnier was named as France’s new Prime Minister.
| Photo Credit: AFP

President Emmanuel Macron named EU former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s new Prime Minister on Thursday (September 5, 2024) after more than 50 days of caretaker government.

The appointment of the 73-year-old Mr. Barnier follows weeks of intense efforts by Mr. Macron and his aides to find a candidate who might be able to build loose groupings of backers in parliament and survive possible attempts by Mr. Macron’s opponents to quickly topple the new government that Mr. Barnier will now put together and lead.

A statement from Mr. Macron’s office announcing Mr. Barnier’s appointment said he’d been tasked “with forming a unifying government to serve the country and the French people.”

“This appointment comes after an unprecedented cycle of consultations during which, in accordance with his constitutional duty, the President ensured that the Prime Minister and the future government would meet the conditions to be as stable as possible and give themselves the chances of uniting as broadly as possible,” the statement said.

Mr. Barnier, a career politician proud of his humble roots in France’s Alpine region of Haute-Savoie, is no stranger to complex and difficult tasks: He was the European Union’s chief negotiator in the difficult talks with Britain over its Brexit departure from the bloc.

Mr. Barnier replaces Gabriel Attal, who resigned on July 16 following quick-fire legislative elections that produced a divided and hung parliament, plunging France into political turmoil.

But Mr. Macron kept Mr. Attal and his ministers on in a caretaker capacity, handling day-to-day affairs, so political instability wouldn’t overshadow the July 26-Aug. 11 Paris Olympics, when France was in the global spotlight.

In a political career over more than 50 years, Mr. Barnier has served as French foreign, European affairs, environment and agriculture minister — and twice as a European commissioner.

Influential far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon immediately came out against Mr. Barnier’s appointment and predicted the new Prime Minister would not get a majority backing in the bitterly divided National Assembly.

Mr. Melenchon said the appointment flew in the face of the July 7 legislative election results that left parliament’s lower house split between three main blocs — the left, including Mr. Melenchon’s party; the center where Mr. Macron has based his support, and the far right, converging around anti-immigration leader Marine Le Pen.

“The election has been stolen,” Mr. Melenchon asserted.