French President Emmanuel Macron appointed former European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, 73, as prime minister on Thursday after 60 days of suspense following July’s general election, which left the National Assembly without a majority.
The oldest prime minister of the Ve Republic — the political regime in force in France since 1958 — thus succeeds Gabriel Attal, 35, who was the youngest, as head of government.
With solid political experience in France and Brussels, Michel Barnier is known as a good mediator: he was the European Union’s negotiator when the United Kingdom left the continental bloc. Before that, he was a minister under the colours of the right on several occasions since 1993, notably under the presidencies of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Emmanuel Macron “tasked him with forming a unifying government to serve the country and the French people,” the presidency said in a statement. The head of state “ensured that the prime minister and the future government would create the conditions to be as stable as possible and give themselves the chance to unite as broadly as possible,” it added.
Michel Barnier will have to use all his diplomatic skills to form a government capable of escaping parliamentary censure and putting an end to the most serious political crisis of the Fifth Republic.e Republic.
A task that seems like an impossible mission, as no viable coalition has emerged so far.
The National Assembly resulting from the July legislative elections – convened after the dissolution of the lower house decided by the head of state, in the wake of a rout of his majority in the European elections – is fragmented into three blocs: left, centre right and far right.
His nomination has in fact sparked angry comments from the left, the main force in the Assembly, which was demanding the post of head of government.
“We are entering a crisis of the regime,” estimated on X the leader of the socialists, Olivier Faure, denouncing a “democratic denial taken to its peak: a prime minister from the party which arrived in 4e position”, referring to the right-wing party Les Républicains of which Mr Barnier is a member.
“Stolen election”
“The election was stolen from the French,” deplored the leader of the radical left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “He is the personality closest to the positions” of the National Rally (RN), the far-right party, he also judged.
For several weeks now, the RN, which emerged groggy in July from the legislative elections, in which it saw itself as the big winner a month earlier after its triumph in the European elections in June, seems to have transformed itself into a kingmaker.
The Republican blockade in the legislative elections which had confirmed the failure of the extreme right, which came in third place after the left and the centre right, seems nothing more than a distant memory.
Thanks to the presidential procrastination over the post of head of government – Emmanuel Macron insisting on a prime minister who does not immediately succumb to a motion of censure and who does not unravel his reforms, particularly that of pensions, to which the left was hostile – the RN has transformed itself into an “arbiter of elegance”, according to a pillar of the majority.
The leader of the RN, Marine Le Pen, had thus torpedoed the nomination of another LR candidate, the ex-minister Xavier Bertrand, her historic political adversary in the north of France.
Regarding Michel Barnier, who in 2022 advocated a 3 to 5 year “moratorium” on immigration, the far right indicated that it would judge his general policy speech on its merits, before deciding on a possible censure of his government.
In the meantime, the resigning ministers from the Attal government will remain in office to continue to manage current affairs while negotiations with the parties take place, which many predict will be long and difficult.
Time is running out to form a full government, with the 2025 budget due to be tabled in Parliament on 1er October at the latest.