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Michel Barnier named as new prime minister of France Michel Barnier named as new prime minister of France
(32 minutes later)
Emmanuel Macron tasks former EU Brexit negotiator with forming government after weeks of political deadlock Macron tasks former EU Brexit negotiator with forming a unifying government after months of political paralysis
Emmanuel Macron has named Michel Barnier, the European Union’s former Brexit negotiator, as the new prime minister of France, local media have reported. Emmanuel Macron has appointed the European Union’s former Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, as prime minister of France, as he seeks to put an end to two months of political paralysis after a snap election.
Barnier is now tasked with forming a government after almost two months of political deadlock following a snap election that delivered an unwieldy hung parliament. The French president said he had tasked Barnier with forming “a unifying government in the service of the country”.
Barnier will have the daunting challenge of trying to push reforms, and the 2025 budget, through a deeply divided parliament at a time when France is under pressure from the European Commission and bond markets to reduce its deficit. Macron shocked France by calling a snap parliamentary election in June that resulted in a hung parliament and a deeply divided political landscape.
Macron’s gamble to call the snap parliamentary election after the European elections in June backfired as his centrist coalition lost dozens of seats and no party won an absolute majority. A leftwing coalition emerged as France’s biggest political force but with not enough seats to reach an absolute majority of 289 in the National Assembly. Macron’s centrist faction and the far right make up the two other major groups. Barnier’s traditional rightwing party came fourth and has 47 seats in parliament.
The left’s New Popular Front alliance came first but Macron ruled out asking them to form a government after other parties said they would immediately vote it down. He replaces Gabriel Attal, who resigned on 16 July after the snap election but was kept on by Macron in a caretaker capacity.
More details soon … Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally party said support for Barnier would depend on his policy programme.
The Socialist party leader, Olivier Faure, part of the leftwing coalition which got the highest number of seats in the election, said it was a “denial of democracy” for Macron to appoint a prime minister from the party who came fourth. “We’re entering a crisis of regime,” Faure said.
Barnier was known for almost 50 years in rightwing French politics as a centrist, liberal-minded neo-Gaullist, devoted to the European cause. But in 2021 he stunned observers by lurching to the right and hardening his stance on immigration and security as part of an unsuccessful bid to become the presidential candidate for the right against Macron in 2022.
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 how dangerous it could be when divisions in society were allowed to fester. Shocking many in Brussels, he called for a French moratorium of three to five years for non-European immigrants, in which even family members joining immigrants would be stopped, and called for France to regain legal sovereignty from EU courts.
Barnier has previously said he wanted to return to a leading role in French politics. After the post-Brexit agreement was signed with the UK, he said he realised 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 Les Républicains.
At 73, Barnier becomes the oldest premier in the history of modern France. This week, Julien Odoul, an MP for Le Pen’s party, criticised him on his age, saying he was a “French Joe Biden” who often changed his views, and was “an opportunist” with “no backbone”.
Barnier has long styled himself as dependable elder statesman – a mountaineer and hiker from the Alps, who built his career in local village politics and likes walks in ancient forests.
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 EU commissioner. His supporters point out that he has won every direct vote he has stood for since the age of 22. He is a former environment minister, and co-organiser of the 1992 Winter Olympics.