Michel Barnier: Brexit negotiator appointed French prime minister
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Former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has been appointed French prime minister.
After facing weeks of pressure following the tumultuous French elections, President Emmanuel Macron has appointed Mr Barnier to the post.
France has been in a state of flux since Mr Macron’s party lost its majority in parliament amid a rise in seats for Marine Le Pen’s far-right party.
Ms Le Pen has said National Rally will not be part of a government led by Mr Barnier, 73. Members of the New Popular Front, the alliance that won the election, have also expressed anger.
Mr Barnier faces a vote of confidence by MPs in order to be able to stand as prime minister.
Mr Barnier, who once described former UK prime minister Boris Johnson as a “bulldozer”, led the EU’s talks with Britain over its exit from the bloc from 2016 to 2021.
Before that, the conservative politician held roles in various French governments and was also an EU Commissioner.
He is staunchly pro-European and has spent his career as a moderate politician, though he toughened his discourse considerably during his failed 2021 bid to get his centre-right Republican Party’s ticket for the presidential election, by saying immigration was out of control.
During his bid to be a candidate, he said he would call for a Europe-wide 3-5 year moratorium on immigration by stopping the awarding of new citizenships, limiting family reunifications and cutting the flow of foreign students – much to the shock of his former EU colleagues, according to BFM TV.
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President Macron had considered a string of candidates for prime minister, searching for someone with enough support to guarantee a stable government.
A statement from Mr Macron’s office announcing Mr Barnier’s appointment said he’d been tasked “with forming a unifying government to serve the country and the French people”.
Ms Le Pen responded to Mr Barnier’s appointment saying: “The National Rally will not participate in a government of
any kind whatsoever of Mr Barnier’s.
“For the rest, that is to say on the fundamental issues, we are waiting to see what Mr Barnier’s general policy speech is and the way in which he leads the compromises that will be necessary on the budget.”
Ms Le Pen’s party came third in the July vote, with the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) coming first and Mr Macron’s Ensemble alliance second.
The far-right party, however, had won the first round of voting on 30 June.
National Rally president Jordan Bardella commented on X: “After an interminable wait, unworthy of a great democracy, we acknowledge the appointment of Michel Barnier as prime minister of Emmanuel Macron.
“We will judge his general policy speech, his budgetary decisions and his actions on the evidence.
“We will plead for the major emergencies of the French – the cost of living, security, immigration – to finally be addressed, and we reserve all political means of action if this is not the case in the coming weeks.”
Mr Barnier’s Republicans scored less than 50 seats out of the 577 available in the French lower house in July, with National Rally on 126, Mr Macron’s coalition on around 160 and the New Popular Front on around 180.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, a leading figure in the New Popular Front (NPF) leftist alliance that came first in the vote, said: “The President has just decided to officially deny the result of the legislative elections that he himself had called.
“It is not the New Popular Front, which came out on top in the election, that will have the prime minister… The election was therefore stolen from the French people. The message was denied.”
Hard-left France Unbowed assembly member Mathilde Panot, also part of the NPF, called for more protests and added: “52 days after the government was defeated at the polls, Macron continues to see himself as an autocrat. By appointing Michel Barnier, the president refuses to respect popular sovereignty and the choice made at the ballot box.”