Michel Barnier: ‘Monsieur Brexit’ to France’s PM

New French prime minister Michel Barnier delivers a speech during the handover ceremony, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024 in Paris. President Emmanuel Macron has named EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister after more than 50 days of caretaker government.
| Photo Credit: AP

Choosing conservative Michel Barnier as his Prime Minister, French President Emmanuel Macron has tasked the 73-year-old veteran politician with the tricky challenge of winning the confidence of a starkly divided National Assembly. Not a stranger to tackling sticky situations, the former EU chief negotiator accepted his role, saying, “There is a need for respect, appeasement and unity,” as the Left parties cry afoul over a ‘stolen election’.

Born on January 9, 1951, Mr. Barnier comes from humble origins in Southeast France’s La Tronche. Conservative ideals, stemmed during his teenage years in the right-wing Union for the Defence of the Republic (UDR) party, led Mr. Barnier to make his electoral debut in 1978, representing Savoie in the National Assembly. As an avid skier and hiker, Mr. Barnier is credited for bringing the Winter Olympics to his hometown, Savoie, in 1992.

Dubbed as a ‘well-grounded Republican’, Mr. Barnier has served as the Cabinet Minister of Environment (1993-95), European Affairs (1995-97), Foreign Affairs (2004-05) and Agriculture and Fisheries (2007-09) under four different conservative Prime Ministers. He has repeatedly voted for conservative choices like opposing decriminalisation of same sex relations among underage couples, abolishing capital punishment, which might win him the right-wing politicians favour in Parliament.

As the EU’s largest economy – the U.K. – chose to leave the bloc in 2016, Mr. Barnier, who had lost the race to be President of the European Commission to Jean-Claude Juncker in 2014, was tapped to negotiate the ‘Brexit’ deal. Hand-picked by Mr. Juncker for his methodical, cool-headed approach and his experience as the EU’s internal market commissioner (2010-14), Mr. Barnier negotiated with the U.K.’s changing leadership for its ‘costly and painful divorce’. After years of negotiations where he built consensus among the EU’s 27 members, he led the trade talks between the U.K. and the EU, which were finally ratified in 2020 and then was made in-charge of implementing it.

With the rising protests against Mr. Macron’s administration, Mr. Barnier once again turned his attention to French politics, vying a Presidential run as the Republican candidate in the 2022 French elections. Opposing Mr. Macron’s liberal policies, he called for tightening immigration restrictions in France, opening 20,000 new prison places and stringent sentencing for crimes and misdemeanours. While his political views were similar to far-right candidate Marin Le Pen, his economic views echo with Mr. Macron on cutting taxes, raising retirement age and promoting ease of business. His bid ended after he came third in the 2021 Republican Congress with a mere 23.93% votes.

Divided France

Since then, Mr. Barnier remained silent politically for three years till Mr. Macron called for snap elections in July this year after Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) defeated his Renaissance party in the European Parliament elections. In the elections, which were held in two rounds on June 30 and July 7 and Witnessed the highest turnout since 1981, no party won a majority. The leftwing New Popular Front (NPF) finished first with 182 seats, followed by Mr. Macron’s centrist RN.

Mr. Macron rejected the Left’s PM pick, 37-year-old socialist progressive Lucie Castets, claiming that “Institutional stability dictates that this option should not be retained”.

Seeking a consensus builder, Mr. Macron turned to Mr. Barnier with a view that the Brexit negotiator would not overturn his most significant policies and also win the far-right, conservative and centrist votes in the National Assembly. Mr. Barnier, whose appointment comes after 50 days of caretaker government headed by Gabriel Attal, took office on September 5 in the presence of his wife of 40 years, Isabelle Altmayer – a lawyer by profession – at the Prime Minister’s residence at Hôtel Matignon.

However, Mr. Barnier’s problems are far from over. His appointment has already been rejected by the Left. Its influential leader Jean-Luc Melenchon claimed that Mr. Barnier’s appointment flew in the face of the public mandate, asserting, “The election has been stolen”.

While there is no formal time limit for the President to pick a new Cabinet proposed by his Prime Minister, a new government is generally formed within days of the PM’s appointment. Avoiding toppling of his new government, Mr. Barnier must once again navigate political factions to strike a ‘balanced deal’.