President Emmanuel Macron named Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister on Thursday, hoping the Brexit negotiator and veteran conservative can work with the country’s bitterly divided legislature and end the political turmoil that has roiled Macron’s presidency.
Michel Barnier has promised to respond to the ‘anger’ of the people in his first speech as prime minister of France.
Speaking at the handover ceremony with his predecessor Gabriel Attal in Paris, Barnier said his new role would concentrate on fixing a raft of problems causing resentment among French voters.
“It will be about responding as much as we can to the challenges, anger that you talked about, to the suffering, to the feeling of abandonment, injustice that run, far too much, through our cities, our neighbourhoods and our countryside,” he said.
President Emmanuel Macron named Barnier as prime minister on Thursday, hoping the veteran conservative can work with the country’s bitterly divided legislature and end the political turmoil that has roiled Macron’s presidency.
At 73, Barnier is the oldest of the 26 prime ministers that have served modern France’s Fifth Republic.
He replaces the youngest, Gabriel Attal, who was 34 when he was appointed just eight months ago.
He’s a loyal veteran of the recently renamed right-wing Republican Right party (LR) and 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.
Barnier’s appointment ends more than 50 days of a caretaker government in France but offers no guarantee of a return to political calm.
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.
And he faces the tough task of having to work with that acrimonious and deeply divided hung parliament that emerged from an early legislative election Macron called in June.
“With Michel Barnier in Matignon as Prime Minister, the President remains clearly in power. He’s not challenged by his Prime Minister. The extreme moderation and conciliatory character of his Prime Minister is a plus for the President, not necessarily for the French who have voted for the Left and who are feeling betrayed,” said political analyst, Dominique Moisi.
Barnier will now have to survive a confidence vote in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of the parliament.
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 the 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.
ADVERTISEMENTTo 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.
