Assuming to be a very serious candidate, Michel Barnier, in contention for the Republicans primary, admits to being sometimes a little too much. “I am a serious person. I am going to be a very serious president. Even if I have some progress to make in terms of humor. I try to do it every day with the support of my wife and my children, I have room for improvement, no doubt on this subject. But I’m gonna be a very serious president“, he declared on November 16, 2021 on the set of the show C to you on France 5. Who is his wife, Isabelle Altmayer, his best ally who will therefore have the delicate challenge of making him work on his sense of humor?
Competitor of Valérie Pécresse, Xavier Bertrand, Eric Ciotti and Philippe Juvin for the LR primary scheduled for December 4, Michel Barnier knows he has a flaw. Regularly mocked for being too “razor sharp”, the Brexit negotiator recognizes this weakness. To improve, he relies on his wife Isabelle Altmayer whom he married nearly forty years ago, in 1982. Together, they are parents of three children. Nicolas, 34, is the first: he followed in his father’s footsteps by entering politics, he is currently in charge of the presidency of the Senate. Then come Benjamin and Laetitia, twins born in 1990.
Isabelle Barnier is the sister of film producers Nicolas and Eric Altmayer, founders of Mandarin Films in 1996, we owe them films as different as Brice de Nice, the OSS 117 by Michel Hazanavicius, Chocolate with Omar Sy and Thanks to God by François Ozon. The presidential candidate may be able to have humor lessons from Jean Dujardin and the star of Lupine ?
If her brothers are influential figures of the seventh art, Isabelle however preferred to move towards the law. Chargé de mission at the Ministry of Health led by Roselyne Bachelot 2007 to 2010, under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, she then worked for communication and fundraising for the foundation which fights for the protection of children, “Life in the great outdoors“.
Among the women in his life too, there is his mother Denise. She is his example and he describes her as a very committed Christian, especially for road safety since the death of her granddaughter in an accident, Michel Barnier’s niece. She had also not hesitated to stand up to Jacques Chirac during a meeting, while the current presidential candidate was starting politics in Albertville in 1977. She had asked the man who was one of the figures of the RPR why he had refused, a few days earlier, the investiture in Florence of Harcourt, one of the rare female deputies of the movement, in the Paris region. “Who is this good woman ? “Jacques Chirac asked his neighbor, who was precisely Michel Barnier.”It’s my mother“, he had answered, certainly embarrassed by the audacity of his mother. However, he keeps from this moment the pride to be the son of a woman who is not afraid to assert his opinions.