PARIS, Sept 6 — Francesco Fontemaggi, Valerie Leroux and Stuart Williams France’s new right-wing Prime Minister Michel Barnier promised Thursday to address the grievances of the French but also implement “change” as he took office following almost two months of political deadlock.
President Emmanuel Macron tasked the 73-year-old veteran politician with forming a government earlier in the day, seeking to move forward after July snap elections in which his centrist alliance lost its relative majority in parliament.
Barnier, the European Union’s former Brexit negotiator and an ex-foreign minister, is the oldest premier in the history of modern France.
He takes over from 35-year-old Gabriel Attal, a man less than half his age who served only eight months in office during a period of political turbulence unprecedented in recent times in France.
At a handover ceremony, Barnier said the priorities of his government would include “responding, as much as we can, to the challenges, to the angers, to the suffering” of French people.
He said that education, security and “immigration control” would remain at the top of the agenda, and that he would be unafraid to speak the truth on tough issues such as the country’s “financial debt”.
But “there will also be change”, said the member of the right-wing Republicans (LR) party who is not affiliated with the president’s centrist faction.
A left-wing coalition emerged as France’s biggest political force after the elections earlier this summer, but without enough seats for an overall majority in an imbroglio that has taken weeks to unravel.
Macron’s centrist faction and the far right make up the two other major groups in the National Assembly, with the RN as the single largest party.
The left has greeted Macron’s move towards “cohabitation” with Barnier with dismay, and will now seek to topple him with a no-confidence motion.
Controversially, the president appears to be counting on the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen to keep Barnier in power by voting against such a motion.
‘Macron-compatible’
Barnier has been all but invisible in French political life since failing to win his party’s nomination to challenge Macron for the presidency in 2022, during a campaign where he tacked further right and suggested a moratorium on immigration.
The former foreign minister and EU commissioner is “Macron-compatible” and would not be immediately voted out by parliament, an advisor to the president told AFP, asking not to be named.
A minister in the outgoing government, who also asked for anonymity, said he was “very popular with right-wing members of parliament without being an irritant on the left”.
The RN indicated it would not automatically vote down Barnier and would wait and see what programme he lays out in his first address to parliament.
“We will wait to see Mr Barnier’s policy speech,” Le Pen said.
Macron’s predecessor Francois Hollande said he believed the RN had “given a kind of endorsement” to Barnier’s appointment.
As well as two stints as an EU commissioner and handling the thorny negotiations on Britain’s exit from the bloc, Barnier served as a minister under the right-wing administrations of presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed his nomination, saying she knew Barnier had “the interests of Europe and France at heart”.
With a half-century career behind him, Barnier, who proudly extols his origins in the French Alps rather than Paris, first become a member of parliament when he was just 27.
Opponents noted that as a youthful conservative lawmaker, he voted against the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1981.
The composition of the new cabinet, set to be announced in the coming days, will be closely watched for signs of concessions to Macron’s political foes.
‘Tough’ task
Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose France Unbowed party (LFI) and allies belong to a left-wing bloc, said Macron’s naming of Barnier meant the election had been “stolen from the French”.
Macron’s decision comes under the gun of a deadline to submit a draft 2025 budget for France’s strained government finances before October 1.
Barnier’s “task looks tough, but difficulty has never scared him”, said former prime minister Edouard Philippe, who announced earlier this week that he would seek to succeed Macron in 2027 presidential elections.
After the July elections, Macron drew out the appointment of a new prime minister for a period unprecedented since World War II, through the July-August Olympic Games and beyond.
— AFP
Clock is ticking again for Michel Barnier,
France’s anorak-wearing, spreadsheet-
loving new PM
Angelique Chrisafis and Daniel Boffey
Thu 5 September 2024
THE GUARDIAN
Michel Barnier, known to some in France as ‘the Ski Instructor’.Photograph: Jeanne Accorsini/SIPA/REX/Shutterstock
He calmly but firmly negotiated the UK’s departure from the EU after years of British squabbling over Brexit, and he prefers consensus to political punch-ups. But Michel Barnier faces his toughest challenge yet as France’s new prime minister amid the country’s biggest political crisis in decades.
The discreet rightwinger, 73, known for his sensible anoraks, love of spreadsheets and his ever-present briefing dossiers wedged under his arm, is facing a baptism of fire in a deeply divided French political landscape.
The left alliance, which won the largest number of seats in the new parliament but fell short of an absolute majority, says his appointment is undemocratic and he should be brought down by a no-confidence vote. Many on the left point out that in 1981 he voted against the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
Marine Le Pen’s far right say they will hold fire and judge him on his programme first. But two far-right MPs recently described Barnier, now France’s oldest premier in modern history, as a Jurassic Park-style “fossil” and a “French Joe Biden” who constantly changes his mind.
Another far-right MP said Barnier, who served as a minister long ago under the right’s Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, had been “brought out of mothballs”. This was at odds with French voters turning out en masse in July’s snap election seeking political change, they said.
Against a backdrop of political rivalry, there is an urgency to Barnier’s appointment, announced on Thursday by Emmanuel Macron after nearly two months of political deadlock. Time is running out to prepare the 2025 budget amid fears of austerity measures and deficit clashes with the EU.
Barnier was known for almost 50 years in rightwing French politics as a centrist, liberal-minded neo-Gaullist, devoted to the European cause. He called himself a “patriot and a European”.
In 2021 he stunned observers by lurching significantly to the right and hardening his stance on immigration and security as part of an unsuccessful attempt to become a presidential candidate against Macron the following year.
At the time, Barnier claimed that unregulated immigration from outside the EU was weakening France’s sense of identity. He believed the UK’s vote to leave the EU showed the dangers of allowing societal divisions to fester.
Shocking many in Brussels, he called for a French moratorium of three to five years for non-European immigrants, under which even family members joining immigrants would be stopped, and called for France to regain legal sovereignty from European Union courts.
Overall, though, Barnier’s political views are close to Macron’s pro-business, pro-Europe stance. Macron wanted a prime minister who would not try to undo controversial measures pushed through in recent years, in particular a rise in the pension age that angered the left. The president also wanted to ensure there was no tampering with his hardline immigration law.
Barnier had previously said he wanted to return to a leading role in French politics. After the 2020 post-Brexit agreement was signed with the UK, he said he realised on Christmas Eve that he missed France and wanted to be “useful” in French politics. “I’ve never been a technocrat; I’ve always been a politician,” Barnier said when he tried to become the presidential candidate for the conservative party Les Républicains.
Born in a suburb of the French Alpine city of Grenoble, he is devoted to the Savoie area of the Alps. He has long styled himself as dependable elder statesman – a mountaineer and hiker from the Alps who built his career in local village politics, likes walks in ancient forests and says it is crucial for leading politicians to “love trees”. He decorated his European Commission office with a photo of his role as a co-organiser of the 1992 Winter Olympics, which led to one French nickname: the Ski Instructor.
First elected aged 22 as a local councillor in Savoie, he entered parliament aged only 27 in 1978. He served four times as a government minister and twice as an EU commissioner. As the commissioner for internal market and services, he negotiated an extensive new regulation of financial markets after the global crash, including measures unpopular in the City of London.
During the Brexit negotiations, he was probably better known in the UK than in France. British figures, mostly leave-voting businesspeople and politicians, often tried to soften him up with food – business leaders offered him a hamper including cheddar, tea and jam, while David Davis had a sumptuous lunch of Welsh lamb prepared in Downing Street in 2017 and then beef wellington at a later lunch in Brussels. But Barnier was known in Brussels to stick to fish at lunch – often plain fish and spinach.
Barnier, although seen as Macron-compatible, has been critical of the president in recent times, questioning the president’s decision to call a “risky” June snap election and calling his top-down way of running the country “solitary” and “arrogant”. In 2022, when Macron’s centrists lost their absolute majority in parliament but remained the biggest force, Barnier said “Macronism” was on its last legs.
In 2022, after Macron was elected for a second term as president, Barnier called on the centrists to “move from a culture of arrogance to a culture of compromise”.
Now, in a parliament divided between three warring groups – the left, the centre and the far right – Barnier needs to show how that culture of compromise might work. Rival groups in parliament could threaten a vote of no confidence and parliament could be dissolved again in less than a year for fresh elections. As Barnier often liked to remark during the Brexit talks, the clock is ticking.
Who is Michel Barnier, the man primed to
be France's next PM?
James Thomas
Thu 5 September 2024
After two months of political deadlock, French President Emmanuel Macron finally named his new prime minister, Michel Barnier.
The former Brexit negotiator's nomination follows weeks of political wrangling, as parties on both sides of the aisle fought to bring their preferred candidate to the fore after July's snap parliamentary elections.
At 73, he is the oldest prime minister of the Fifth Republic at the time of his appointment.
Barnier will now have to survive a no-confidence vote in the National Assembly, France's lower house of the parliament, and navigate a political crisis.
His ascension to the office of prime minister would be the latest addition to a long and esteemed political career that has bounced between Paris and Brussels.
From humble beginnings
Barnier was born in the eastern alpine region of Savoie in 1951 in a family of leather craftsmen and left-leaning practicing Catholics leading a modest yet comfortable life.
He started his political activism at 14, joining the movement of Charles de Gaulle and quickly found a job as a ministerial advisor upon graduating from the prestigious École de Commerce Supérieur de Paris — a business school — in 1972.
He advised ministers for several years before deciding to get his hands dirty for real. In 1978, he was elected to the National Assembly as the youngest MP there.
After 15 years, following some time spent in Savoie to help organise the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, he returned to work for the government, this time as a fully-fledged minister. He spent two years on the environment portfolio and another two years as the minister for European affairs, a position that would later help springboard him to Brussels.
Issues such as the Maastricht Treaty, the creation of the euro and free movement across the bloc threw Barnier into the European spotlight: although he became a French senator in 1997, he ended up firmly back in Brussels when he was named as the EU's commissioner for regional policy in 1999.
As one of the main figures shaping the European project, Barnier was also able to boost his profile back in France. In 2004, he was put at the helm of France's foreign ministry and in 2007 he was named agriculture and fishing minister— two key posts in the French cabinet.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, right, and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov hold a joint news conference at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, Friday, July 16, 2004. - JACQUES BRINON/AP
Brussels, Brexit and beyond
Then in 2009, he returned to Brussels, first as an MEP and then as Commissioner for Internal Market and Services — one of the most high-profile jobs in the EU executive.
From this lofty position, he mounted an unsuccessful attempt to become President of the European Commission in 2014 but lost out to Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker. However, a high-profile role of a different kind was just around the corner.
In a move that sent shockwaves across the EU, the UK voted to leave the bloc in 2016, sparking series after series of intense negotiations on the terms of the divorce.
Barnier was the man tasked with leading the EU negotiating team, a role that provided him with heaps of visibility both in the UK and in the Brussels bubble. His handling of roughly five years' worth of Brexit talks, covering both the UK's exit from the EU and the future relationship between the two, earned him significant praise and admiration in EU circles.
Nevertheless, his eyes soon turned back to his homeland. In 2021, Barnier announced that he would stand in the French presidential election the following year, but ultimately failed to win enough support from the liberal-conservative Republican party, who instead opted for Valérie Pécresse.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, left, is welcomed by European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in Strasbourg, France, 11 March 2019 - Vincent Kessler/AP
A fragmented parliament
So now Barnier appears primed for the second-highest office in the land, much to the dismay of MPs and citizens alike.
July's elections divided the National Assembly into three near-equal blocs: the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NFP), Macron's centrist group and the far-right National Rally.
With all three vowing not to work with each other, Macron was always going to struggle to find a prime minister who would be able to rally enough votes from MPs to carry the National Assembly.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the French left's largest party France Unbowed (LFI), said that Barnier's appointment had "stolen" the election from the French people, seeing as the NFP ended up being the largest political grouping.
The National Rally's Jordan Bardella reacted to the news by saying that the party "acknowledged" Barnier's appointment after a wait "unworthy of a great democracy".
While Barnier certainly appears to have his work cut out for him should he enter office, his first big task is shoring up enough support in parliament to make sure he survives the no-confidence vote and actually gets there.
Two months after the second round of the snap parliamentary elections, President Emmanuel Macron has appointed Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister.
The nomination comes after weeks of increasing pressure from all political groups to nominate a candidate.
Barnier will now have to survive a confidence vote in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of the parliament.
The current National Assembly is divided into three blocs: the left-wing coalition NFP (that won the most seats but fell short of an absolute majority), Macron’s centrist group and the far-right National Rally.
A loyal veteran of the recently renamed right-wing Republican Right party (LR), Barnier has had a long political career in France and the EU, having served twice as European Commissioner and, between 2016 and 2021, the chief EU negotiator for Brexit.
At 73, he is the oldest prime minister of the Fifth Republic at the time of his appointment.
His closest challenger, Pierre Bérégovoy, was 66 years old when he took office in 1992 under the presidency of François Mitterand. Gabriel Attal, Michel Barnier's predecessor, was the youngest PM when he took office at 34 years old.
French politicians react — some calling for protests
National Rally's Jordan Bardella reacted to the news out of the Élysée on X by saying that the party "acknowledged" Barnier's appointment after a wait "unworthy of a great democracy".
"We will ask for the major emergencies of the French people (such as) purchasing power, security and immigration, to finally be addressed, and we reserve all political means of action if this is not the case in the coming weeks," the far-right party's president said.
“The election has been stolen from the French people," said Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of French left's largest party France Unbowed (LFI), speaking in the wake of Barnier's appointment.
"We don't believe for a moment that there will then be a majority in the National Assembly to accept such a denial of democracy", Mélenchon continued.
The three-time presidential candidate also called for "the most powerful mobilisation possible" in the streets on 7 September, the day of the demonstration planned by LFI.
NFP coalition's Greens told Euronews that, by appointing Barnier, Macron went against the voters by allowing the National Rally "to be the arbiter ... and has turned his back on the millions of voters who, in the ballot box, made a historic republican barrage in France."
"Obsessed with preserving his neoliberal record and his determination not to see the pension reform repealed, Emmanuel Macron has dismissed the New Popular Front, opting instead to align himself with the radicalised right," the Greens said.
France's left wing threatens Macron with impeachment over PM deadlock
The Communist party also reacted negatively to the news of Barnier's appointment, telling Euronews in a statement that he was "the right wing’s choice to continue the president's policies."
"Right up to the end, the president used every means at his disposal to circumvent the results of the ballot box," party representative Fabien Roussel said.
Meanwhile, Macron's outgoing PM Attal posted a thank-you note on X, saying "The bond we have is the most precious thing for me. Count on me to continue to weave it."
He made no comments on Barnier's appointment.
Can Barnier survive the vote?
In choosing Barnier, Macron might have inevitably strengthened the hand of the National Rally and given it the role of kingmaker, experts believe. But the left's importance should not be dismissed if Barnier is to take on the hot seat of prime minister.
"Today, we have three major players in politics: Macron, Melenchon and Marine Le Pen. And there are two who are considered to be making a mess of things. It's just an extra step that helps to give more credibility to the far-right," Emmanuel Rivière, political scientist and polling expert, told Euronews.
If he survives a confidence vote, the new head of government will have to get straight to work: first, France must submit its proposals to slash public spending to the EU by 20 September, though that deadline can be extended until October.
To comply with EU rules, France would need to make cuts of at least €30 billion in 2025.
Then, a draft of the country's budget for 2025 is due to be presented to Parliament on 1 October, at a time when France's public finances are in dire straits.
Michel Barnier named as new French prime
minister
Dalal Mawad, Stephanie Halasz, Sophie Tanno and Emmanuel Miculita, CNN
Thu 5 September 2024
Michel Barnier, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, has become France’s new prime minister, the French president’s office says, ending two months of stalemate following inconclusive parliamentary elections.
In a statement on Thursday, the Élysée Palace said: “The President of the Republic has appointed Michel Barnier as Prime Minister. He has to form a united government to serve the country and the French people.”
The statement added that Barnier’s appointment comes after “an unprecedented cycle of consultations” in order to ensure a stable government.
Barnier, 73, a staunch Europhile, is a member of the Republicans party which represents the traditional right. He is best known on the international stage for his role in mediating the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.
A 40-year veteran of French and European politics, Barnier has held various ministerial positions in France, including roles as foreign, agriculture and environment ministers. He served twice as a European commissioner as well as an adviser to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. In 2021, Barnier announced his bid for presidential elections but failed to garner enough support within his party.
Macron accepted the resignation of former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and his government in July, after his centrist Ensemble alliance was defeated in the second round of France’s snap parliamentary election. The president has since faced calls from across the political divide to name a new PM. Last week, Macron told journalists during a trip to Serbia he was “making all the necessary efforts” to finalize a name.
“I will have the opportunity in a few days, in just a few weeks, to state the major legislative priorities and proposals on behalf of the new government before parliament. It will be a question of responding, as much as we can, to the challenges, to the anger, as you mentioned, to the suffering, to the feeling of abandonment, of injustice that runs through our cities, our neighborhoods and our countryside far too much,” Barnier said, speaking alongside Attal during the transfer of power at Hotel Matignon, the prime minister’s office in Paris.
Surrounded by his family, staff members and several lawmakers, Attal congratulated Barnier.
“The French know you. They know that you are a great local elected official,” said Attal, praising Barnier’s “almost unmatched experience of serving the state in various international and European functions.”
But he did not hide his frustration that his tenure came to such an abrupt end.
“Eight months is too short,” Attal said, warning that the country’s politics is suffering, “but recovery is possible.”
Forming a government
Barnier’s prospects for forming a stable government are unclear. Currently, France’s far-right National Rally (RN) is one of the largest parties in parliament following the election in early July. It has previously suggested it could be open to working with Barnier and would not immediately veto him.
Still, RN politician Laurent Jacobelli spoke disparagingly of Barnier, telling French television network TF1: “They are taking out of mothballs those who have governed France for 40 years.”
The leaders of France’s main far-right and far-left political parties reacted to the appointment of Barnier following Thursday’s announcement, with the far left condemning the decision.
Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally party, said on social media that his party will “judge” Barnier based on his inaugural “general policy speech, his budgetary decisions and his actions.”
Bardella’s party colleague Marine Le Pen also stressed in televised remarks that the party “will not participate in any government whatsoever” until after they have heard Barnier’s speech laying out his policy plans.
Le Pen did go on to commend Barnier on one level, describing the veteran politician as “someone who is respectful of the different political forces” and “capable” of addressing her party.
Meanwhile, Jean-Luc Melenchon of the far-left France Unbowed party delivered a stinging rebuke of President Macron, accusing him of “stealing” the parliamentary elections held in July.
“The president has just officially denied the results of the legislative elections that he himself had called for. He (Barnier) is a member, among others, of a party which was last in the legislative election. The election was therefore stolen from the French people,” Melenchon remarked in a televised speech.
The left-wing leader called on French people to protests against Barnier’s appointment from this Saturday.
Barnier served as the chief negotiator during the UK’s exit from the European Union. The lengthy talks between London and Brussels ran from 2016 to 2021 and he is known among Brexiteers in the UK for driving a hard bargain.
Born in January 1951 in a suburb of the Alpine city of Grenoble, Barnier was first elected to parliament at the age of 27.
New France PM Barnier promises 'change'
as he takes office
AFP UK
Thu 5 September 2024
France's new right-wing Prime Minister Michel Barnier promised Thursday to address the grievances of the French but also implement "change" as he took office following almost two months of political deadlock.
President Emmanuel Macron tasked the 73-year-old veteran politician with forming a government earlier in the day, seeking to move forward after July snap elections in which his centrist alliance lost its relative majority in parliament.
Barnier, the European Union's former Brexit negotiator and an ex-foreign minister, is the oldest premier in the history of modern France.
He takes over from 35-year-old Gabriel Attal, a man less than half his age who served only eight months in office during a period of political turbulence unprecedented in recent times in France.
At a handover ceremony, Barnier said the priorities of his government would include "responding, as much as we can, to the challenges, to the angers, to the suffering" of French people.
He said that education, security and "immigration control" would remain at the top of the agenda, and that he would be unafraid to speak the truth on tough issues such as the country's "financial debt".
But "there will also be change", said the member of the right-wing Republicans (LR) party who is not affiliated with the president's centrist faction.
A left-wing coalition emerged as France's biggest political force after the elections earlier this summer, but without enough seats for an overall majority in an imbroglio that has taken weeks to unravel.
Macron's centrist faction and the far right make up the two other major groups in the National Assembly, with the RN as the single largest party.
The left has greeted Macron's move towards "cohabitation" with Barnier with dismay, and will now seek to topple him with a no-confidence motion.
Controversially, the president appears to be counting on the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen to keep Barnier in power by voting against such a motion.
- 'Macron-compatible' -
Barnier has been all but invisible in French political life since failing to win his party's nomination to challenge Macron for the presidency in 2022, during a campaign where he tacked further right and suggested a moratorium on immigration.
The former foreign minister and EU commissioner is "Macron-compatible" and would not be immediately voted out by parliament, an advisor to the president told AFP, asking not to be named.
A minister in the outgoing government, who also asked for anonymity, said he was "very popular with right-wing members of parliament without being an irritant on the left".
The RN indicated it would not automatically vote down Barnier and would wait and see what programme he lays out in his first address to parliament.
"We will wait to see Mr Barnier's policy speech," Le Pen said.
Macron's predecessor Francois Hollande said he believed the RN had "given a kind of endorsement" to Barnier's appointment.
As well as two stints as an EU commissioner and handling the thorny negotiations on Britain's exit from the bloc, Barnier served as a minister under the right-wing administrations of presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed his nomination, saying she knew Barnier had "the interests of Europe and France at heart".
With a half-century career behind him, Barnier, who proudly extols his origins in the French Alps rather than Paris, first become a member of parliament when he was just 27.
Opponents noted that as a youthful conservative lawmaker, he voted against the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1981.
The composition of the new cabinet, set to be announced in the coming days, will be closely watched for signs of concessions to Macron's political foes.
- 'Tough' task -
Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose France Unbowed party (LFI) and allies belong to a left-wing bloc, said Macron's naming of Barnier meant the election had been "stolen from the French".
Macron's decision comes under the gun of a deadline to submit a draft 2025 budget for France's strained government finances before October 1.
Barnier's "task looks tough, but difficulty has never scared him", said former prime minister Edouard Philippe, who announced earlier this week that he would seek to succeed Macron in 2027 presidential elections.
After the July elections, Macron drew out the appointment of a new prime minister for a period unprecedented since World War II, through the July-August Olympic Games and beyond.
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Pawan Pandit, a cow vigilante, stops a truck at a road block near Chandigarh, India [File: Cathal McNaughton/Reuters]
