He successfully negotiated the conditions of Brexit: appointed French Prime Minister on Thursday, Michel Barnier, 73, will now have to use all his diplomatic skills to lead a minority government at the mercy of motions of censure in the Assembly.
Applauded in Brussels for his negotiating skills, to the point that his name was circulated to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker in 2019 at the head of the European Commission, this member of the right-wing party Les Républicains (LR), originally from the French Alps, has forged a reputation as a “pragmatist”.
“He is a statesman. A man of consensus and negotiation as he proved during the Brexit negotiations, which is essential in the period we are experiencing,” LR MP Vincent Jeanbrun told AFP, convinced that he will manage to unite “well beyond his camp.” The Assembly resulting from the July legislative elections is fragmented into three blocs, the left, the centre right and the far right.
For her part, LR senator Agnès Evren welcomes a “Barnier method” which “combines respect for one’s interlocutor and solidity of convictions”.
Qualities which have certainly seduced Emmanuel Macron, who is looking for a personality capable of thwarting a majority of censure in the Assembly, but which have for the moment been more applauded in Brussels than in France, and even in his political family of the Republicans.
He represents “everything that the French do not want. He is stratospheric, disconnected and he will continue or end up killing the right,” laments an LR parliamentarian to the AFP.
Old Wolf
He also bit the dust in 2021 in the first round of the LR primaries to designate the right-wing candidate for the 2022 presidential election.
Long positioned on a centrist line of Gaullism, Michel Barnier then initiated an unexpected rightward turn, arguing in particular for a “moratorium” of three to five years on immigration, without however managing to convince the activists.
An old wolf of French politics, he entered politics in 1973. A long career which led the far-right MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy to say that he was “fossilized from political life”.
Decades spent walking the corridors of power, in Paris and Brussels, where this tall, white-haired man has built a reputation for listening, arguing and trying to convince.
“Behind a smooth exterior hides a tortured personality. He is a worrier and needs advice. He draws his strength from a team of colleagues in whom he has complete confidence,” explains one of his close friends.
Michel Barnier served in several right-wing governments in France in the 1990s and 2000s, with various portfolios (European Affairs, Environment, Agriculture, Foreign Affairs, etc.), was European Commissioner twice, responsible for Regional Policies and the Financial Framework (1999-2004), then responsible for the Internal Market and Services (2009-2014).
A “mountain man”
Married and father of three children, he readily recalls that he is a “mountain man”, a way of marking his difference: not being part of the Parisian establishment and not coming from the prestigious elite ENA school but, in his case, from the École supérieure de commerce de Paris.
In his office in Brussels, he would happily show his visitors a photo of himself posing alongside three-time Olympic ski champion Jean-Claude Killy, with whom he successfully organised the 1992 Winter Olympics in his home town of Albertville.
Another showed him during the release of journalist Florence Aubenas, a hostage in Iraq, obtained while he was in charge of the Quai d’Orsay.
His European career has not always been crowned with success. Jean-Claude Juncker beat him in 2014 in the race for the presidency of the European Commission at the congress of the European People’s Party (EPP, right).
His appointment as Brexit negotiator in 2016, however, allowed him to bounce back and refine his international stature.
“We could have had much worse than the pragmatic and experienced Barnier,” commented Syed Kamall, head of the British Conservative Party delegation to the European Parliament.