Two months after the second round of France's parliamentary elections, on July 7, which saw the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) alliance come out on top, President Emmanuel Macron appointed 73-year-old Michel Barnier, a former European commissioner hailing from the right-wing Les Républicains (LR) party, as prime minister on Thursday, September 5. This choice comes at the end of a long period of hesitation on the part of the French president, who was facing an unprecedented situation. Macron had asked Barnier to "form a unifying government to serve the country," the Elysée said at midday on Thursday.
The name of Barnier, who served as foreign minister under President Jacques Chirac, emerged late on Wednesday, with the Elysée choosing not to make an announcement that evening. He seems to meet the two main criteria the president had set: a profile that avoids the risk of being overthrown by an Assemblée Nationale where there is no majority, "and the ability to form coalitions." One of Barnier's major assets in his bid for the premiership was that he was favored by Alexis Kohler, Macron's chief of staff. According to a former minister, Barnier is also "less divisive" and "more consensual" than the profiles that had been considered so far.
The two "finalists," Bernard Cazeneuve and Xavier Bertrand, who had each met with the president on Monday, were eventually eliminated on Wednesday. Cazeneuve, who was unsure of getting the green light from the Parti Socialiste (PS, left) that he had left, was rejected by Macron because he had wanted to remain firm on a left-wing program, in particular through his desire to challenge the 2023 pension reform. Meanwhile, Bertrand, the LR president of a northern region, came up against an "anti-Bertrand front," with the NFP and Rassemblement National (RN, far-right) threatening to topple him from the outset.
Barnier, who had run in the 2021 right-wing presidential primary, had already had his name bandied about since the summer, among those the president had mentioned to some of his discussion partners. In particular, he had been supported by former prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. For Macron, he has the advantage of a having more relaxed relationship with LR's president, Laurent Wauquiez, than Bertrand. Moreover, he has no presidential ambitions.
Will the former Brexit negotiator on behalf of the European Union see the RN at some point contest him? While the RN group, chaired by Marine Le Pen, has been posing as a kingmaker in the appointment of the prime minister over the past few days, reactions within the far-right party have been mixed. "Michel Barnier is a fossil," said RN lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy on the public radio station France Inter, on Thursday morning, as rumors of his imminent appointment were spreading. He even described Barnier as "stupid."
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