President Emmanuel Macron and his Prime Minister Michel Barnier have agreed on a cabinet. The new centre-right coalition must tackle the debt crisis, defend the pension reform – and be careful not to be overthrown again soon.
The designated French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is in favor of stricter immigration quotas and against family reunification.
France has a new government. Two and a half months after the bitter defeat of Emmanuel Macron’s camp in the parliamentary elections, the French President and his Prime Minister Michel Barnier have agreed on a cabinet that leans clearly to the right.
The 19 designated ministers and 20 secretaries of state are almost exclusively members of Macron’s centrist alliance Ensemble and representatives of the conservative Républicains. Only the designated Minister of Justice Didier Migaud comes from the left wing. However, the former socialist does not belong to the left-wing alliance Nouveau Front populaire (NFP), which emerged as the strongest force in the July elections and is categorically boycotting Barnier.
Signals to the right
The new Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is the most talked about person in Paris. He was previously the leader of the Republicans and belongs to the right-wing conservative wing of the party. Retailleau is in favor of immigration quotas and stricter rules for the family reunification of refugees. His appointment can be seen as a clear indication that Barnier wants to tighten the reins on migration policy and thus sends a signal to the Rassemblement national, which attaches conditions to toleration of the government.
Retailleau’s party colleagues Catherine Vautrin and Laurence Garnier, the new Minister for Regional Affairs and the new Secretary of State for Consumer Protection, are two other decidedly conservative women. In the past, both voted against marriage for all and against the inclusion of the right to abortion in the French constitution. Macron is said to have disliked their appointment, but in the end Barnier prevailed.
The new foreign minister will be Jean-Noël Barrot, who belongs to the presidential camp and was previously the assistant minister for European affairs. He represents continuity in French foreign policy, including support for Ukraine. The difficult dossier for economy and finance will be given to the 33-year-old liberal Antoine Armand, also a confidant of Macron. The current defense minister Sébastien Lecornu will remain in his post, as will the culture minister Rachida Dati and the energy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
It is striking that none of the potential presidential candidates are part of the government and several political heavyweights are out of the running. Barnier is said to have made sure of this. Both the previous Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and the previous Economics Minister Bruno Le Maire have left the government.
Continuity in foreign policy: Jean-Noël Barrot, a centrist who enjoys Macron’s trust, will become France’s new foreign minister.
Can the new centre-right coalition even survive? The former EU Commissioner, who was appointed Prime Minister by Macron just over two weeks ago, was under considerable pressure from the start of the talks. The NFP had completely refused to work with Barnier and had brought a motion of no confidence into play. Olivier Faure, the head of the Parti Socialiste, set the tone at the weekend when he described the new cabinet as a “reactionary government that is giving democracy the finger”. The radical left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon spoke of a “Macronist disaster film”.
Macron had ruled out a United Left government, which includes Mélenchon’s party La France insoumise, because he considers its economic plans to be dangerous. Nevertheless, Barnier also tried to recruit moderate social democrats such as the President of the Court of Auditors Pierre Moscovici and former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve for his team in order to form the broadest possible coalition. But both declined because they do not predict a long life for the government and do not want to burn their fingers.
Le Pen waits
Barnier is also facing trouble from the far right. The Rassemblement national made his appointment as prime minister possible in the first place by announcing that it did not want to overthrow him immediately and that it wanted to keep him “under observation” for the time being. Jordan Bardella, the leader of the right-wing nationalists, nevertheless spoke at the weekend of a government that was “weak and fragile”.
This is of course part of the strategy of Marine Le Pen’s party, which wants to present itself to voters as a better alternative on the issues of internal security and migration – but also wants to appear as a constructive opposition that will save the country from even more chaos and unrest. A joint approach with the left, which would be necessary to overthrow Barnier, is therefore not to be expected for the time being.
The future government will not have an absolute majority that can simply implement Macron’s political plans. Barnier will therefore have to rely on the support of different partners depending on the plan. This is likely to be particularly tricky when it comes to budget policy. The EU Commission is initiating an excessive deficit procedure against Paris because of excessive new debt.
There is no way around drastic austerity in France, with its traditionally high public spending, and the issue of possible tax increases has already sparked a dispute between Barnier and the Macron camp before the government was appointed. The new government also no longer wants to forego the controversial increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64, which would bring more money into the public coffers. But there is united resistance to this minefield from the left and the far right. Barnier will have to fight for one of Macron’s key reforms.