French President Emmanuel Macron named Michel Barnier, a veteran right-wing politician and former top European Union negotiator, as the new prime minister on Thursday, hoping to break the political deadlock that has gripped the country. Inconclusive snap parliamentary elections About two months ago.
The French president said in a statement that Mr. Macron had tasked Mr. Barnier with “creating a unity government to serve the country and the French people.”
Mr Macron’s announcement drew criticism for the extraordinary delay in naming a prime minister. Consultations with political leaders continued for weeks as a rotating cast of potential candidates were introduced by the presidency one day and shot down by opponents the next.
Mr. Barnier, 73, is a member of The Republicans, France’s main conservative party, a weak bloc that came fourth in seats in July’s election.
“We are in a critical moment,” Mr. Barnier said in a speech before taking office, adding that he would pursue some of Mr. Macron’s agenda, but also “changes and breaks” with the past. He also promised more “respect” for all forces in parliament, where he would face threats to quickly topple it.
“The government will not be so hypocritical as to think it knows everything,” Mr Barnier said. Mr Macron has often been criticized for his top-down, Reclusive style of governance.
Mr. Barnier’s appointment angered the New Popular Front, an alliance of leftist parties that beat expectations and won the most seats — 193 — in elections for the lower house of parliament, known as the National Assembly. His candidate for Prime Minister, Lucy CassettesA little-known civil servant, Mr. Macron was summarily rejected.
“The election was stolen,” Jean-Luc Melenchon, founder of the hard-left France Unbowed party, part of the New Popular Front, said in a televised speech. “We do not believe for a moment that there will be a majority in the National Assembly to accept such a rejection of democracy.”
Neither the New Popular Front nor any other party or coalition is close to the absolute majority of 289 seats needed to govern unimpeded, and few parties tend to work together – leaving France without any clear governing coalition. No-confidence votes targeting Mr. Barnier’s government are widely expected once parliament officially convenes and he delivers a speech outlining his policies.
Never in the 66-year history of the Fifth Republic had the country gone so long – more than 50 days – without a functioning government. Political paralysis began with resignations on July 16 Gabriel AtalThe former prime minister, who remained in a caretaker capacity but was unable to take any important decisions.
Mr Barnier, also known in France for hosting the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, is a master negotiator who painstakingly hammered out a deal on Brexit. But it will inevitably struggle with the same difficulty in finding an effective or coherent parliamentary majority which Confounding Mr. Macron’s findings.
The centrist alliance led by Mr. Macron’s party lost seats in the election and was left with just 166 seats. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally Party gained several seats and now controls 142 together with its allies.
In an extraordinary turnabout, Mr Macron, dismissing the national rally as a party alien to the republic’s democratic arc, found himself in daily talks with Ms Le Pen in the hope of winning his party’s acceptance of the centre-right candidate. In effect, she seemed to amount to a veto over the process in the last several days.
Mr Macron had little choice. After rejecting the left despite his victory, which did not allow him to govern on his own, only the acceptance of a national rally could save a centre-right candidate like Mr Barnier from immediate loss in a vote of no confidence.
Ms Le Pen said on Thursday that her party wanted a prime minister who “respected the voters of the National Rally.”
“I think Mr. Barnier fits this criteria,” she told reporters. “For the rest, on issues of substance, we will wait to see what Mr. Barnier’s general policy speech is and how he handles the compromises that will be necessary in the next budget.”
But the New Popular Front, which includes France Unbowed, the Socialist Party, the Greens and the Communist Party, immediately said it would reject Mr Barnier’s government.
“The rejection of democracy has reached its peak,” said Olivier Faure, head of the Socialist Party. Said on X. “We are entering a governance crisis.”
The left has called for large demonstrations against Mr Macron in Paris on Saturday. France Unbowed lawmakers have also begun the official process of removing Mr. Macron from office because he has refused to accept the results of parliamentary elections, but that effort has little chance of success.
Mr Macron called for a political pact for the 2024 Summer Olympics, which were held in Paris and proved to be a great and unifying success for France, temporarily relieving the pressure on him. But anger against Mr Macron has grown over the past few weeks.
Alarmed lawmakers warned that it would be increasingly difficult to pass a budget by the end of the year without the government, which is needed to rein in ballooning debt and deficits – among the largest in the eurozone. Mr Barnier will have to reassure Brussels that France can control its finances, after reprimanding the country. Breach of EU regulations Which requires strict financial discipline.
Mr. Barnier, who grew up in the Savoie region in the French Alps, was first elected to parliament in 1978. In the 1990s and 2000s, he held several ministerial posts in right-wing cabinets and was given charge of environment, European affairs. Foreign Affairs and Agriculture. His career continued at the European level, where he was EU Commissioner and, from 2016 to 2021, the bloc’s chief negotiator as it navigated Britain’s withdrawal. He ran unsuccessfully to become the Republican presidential candidate in 2022, but has stayed out of the daily grind of French politics in recent years.
The appointment of the Prime Minister, who runs the country on a day-to-day basis, is a prerogative of the President. There is no constitutionally mandated time frame for doing so, but it is usually within days or at most weeks after a parliamentary election.
But Mr Macron delayed a decision, determined to preserve his key economic measures, including achieving stability and raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64. As did lower corporate taxes that made the French economy more competitive.
Political opponents argued that Mr. Macron had a democratic responsibility to allow parliament to debate and decide on such issues, following his party’s defeat. But in the end distrust of the left outgrew rejection of the far right; And the highly personal approach to the decision reinforced the view of Mr. Macron as an aloof figure who relied almost entirely on his own judgment.
During the long hiatus leading to Mr. Barnier’s appointment, Edouard Philippe, a popular center-right politician and one of Mr. Macron’s former prime ministers, announced he would be a candidate in the 2027 presidential election that will determine Mr. Macron, who is term-limited.
The high point of “Macronism” — a centrist mix of policies without an effective political party and dedicated to marginalizing the traditional right and left — has long since passed.
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