Michel Barnier arrives to fix France’s ‘ungoverned’ state

Michel Barnier, former Brexit negotiator for the EU, now chosen as France’s prime minister in order to avoid a crisis of political nature, hasn’t always been kind towards his new boss Emmanuel Macron.

The veteran politician, aged 73, said that Macron had governed the country in an arrogant and solitary manner, both at home and abroad, before he won his second election in 2022.

Macron has chosen Barnier for the exact opposite. He will use his experience as a political negotiator to create a working consensus on a French political scene that has never been so fractured.

Olivier Guersent was Barnier’s former chief of staff. He is a French UFO. “He is difficult to define. “That makes him compatible with almost everything.”

The nomination of Barnier on Thursday has brought an end to the two-month limbo that followed a snap election which resulted in a hung Parliament and reduced the strength of Macron’s own centrist party.

Macron and Barnier may only have a short respite, as they are still confined by a divided Parliament that can topple the Government at any moment.

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the extreme right Rassemblement National(RN), who had previously snubbed other nominees, has now been given a veto and a powerful negotiating position.

Le Pen said that she would wait until Barnier addressed the parliament before deciding if she should support his government, or at least refrain from voting against it.

It’s going be very difficult for reasons that are not related to Barnier, but have to do with parliamentary math,” said Florence Portelli. She is a mayor of centre-right who has known Barnier since years. The day that the RN declares the end of playtime in schoolyards, it’s over.

It would be a disaster if Le Pen backed a censure resolution. Macron has spent the last seven weeks searching for a prime minister who could survive in Parliament, and this has led to many people concluding that France is “ungovernable”.

In recent days, the Elysee Palace took a merry go-round of candidates for a spin.

If Barnier was voted out, and Macron had trouble finding a replacement for him, he could find himself under pressure from the public to resign to provide a new political start to an unmanageable country.

Barnier and his predecessor Gabriel Attal met on the steps of Hotel de Matignon (the Prime Minister’s Office) for the traditional ceremony of handing over power.

Barnier, at 73, is the oldest. Attal, 35, was the youngest Premier in the Fifth Republic. Many have already called him the French Biden. Jean-Philippe Tanguy a far-right politician called him “fossil”.

Barnier’s old age was part the appeal for Macron. He is ostensibly nearing the end of his professional career and will not be motivated by presidential ambitions. Former aide: “He accepted that his best cards had been dealt.”

He will instead be expected to use nearly 50 years’ worth of experience in politics — including four stints at the ministry and two terms as an European Commissioner, of which five were spent dealing with Brexit — to forge bridges within a bitterly polarized parliament.

Few would have predicted that the EU 27 would remain united as Britain negotiated her divorce at the start of Brexit talks, said Georg Riekeles who was Barnier’s top diplomat in Brussels. They did and the EU met its goals in large part.

It’s a lot to do with his method, his calmness and his respect for all.

Barnier always arrived at meetings well-prepared, and he often brought colourful charts with him as a memento, such as when he met Pope Benedict. (The Pope announced his resignation the following day). He also relied heavily on his highly-skilled staff to take care of the details.

Riekeles who has worked with Barnier intermittently for 15 years said he had a “very good capacity to focus on what is important and a very strong ability to listen and speak to everyone even when he disagrees strongly with them”.

He was the most comfortable working across the party lines.

Barnier, in Paris Match 2021, said: “I can get people to sit at the same table and reach a compromise, without humiliating anyone.” He recalled how his left-wing Catholic father and anticlerical dad had different personalities.

He promised to respect and listen to “all political powers” in his Thursday handover.

Barnier, a committed centrist, seemed to be increasingly at odds with his Gaullists, who were recently rebranded The Republican Right.

Barnier, a proud Savoyard of the French Alps, is often cited as the man who organised the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville.

He is not the most well-known French name but he did run for the party’s presidency in 2021, on the strength of his Brexit victory, and came third.

He called on France to ignore EU law and international law during that campaign and impose an immigration moratorium. His intervention was viewed by some in Brussels as cynical, opportunistic and even shady. But told last year that he wanted to address public concerns which led Britain to vote for Brexit.

Will he find a common ground with Le Pen? Barnier’s supporters say that he has always been against the extreme right in his political career.

Barnier stated that Le Pen’s desire to pull France out of the EU was still present, even though she may have toned down the Euroscepticism during recent elections.

“She is able. . . He said, “She wants to hide her intentions.”

Macron dissolved the parliament in June to try and stop the rise of the far-right. Le Pen is now the kingmaker in the assembly. She can decide whether Barnier will survive, since the left has vowed to vote down any candidate for premier who comes from the right.

Even if she does not vote against the government, her RN Party, which holds more seats in Parliament than Macron’s centre-right camp, will still be required to complete the next urgent task: to negotiate a budget in October for 2025, and to determine any legislative priorities after that.

Francois Hollande, the former socialist president of France, summed up anger among the left by telling reporters that Barnier “needed some sort of RN blessing” in order to get the position — despite praising Barnier’s personal qualities.

Barnier will select a cabinet in the next few days, and the newly appointed prime minister will outline his plans before he faces the first test of his term.

We won’t know whether we are out of the crisis until after the budget is voted. This will determine whether or not we achieve peace and how long the prime minister remains in office, said political analyst and author Chloe Morin.

Analysts and insiders in politics believe that the RN is going to push for an electoral reform, which will introduce more proportionality to parliamentary elections.

Barnier’s primary task will be to maintain a minimal level of stability while dealing with France’s troubling economic and financial conditions.

Guersent, his former assistant, said: “It is an almost impossible task.” There are only three people in France that can accomplish this. “He’s one.”