Fifty-one days after the resignation of Gabriel Attal, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron has finally made up his mind and given the role of Prime Minister to the former European Commissioner and former EU mediator with the United Kingdom for Brexit, the exponent of the Gaullist Republican Party Michel Barnier.
A “slap in the face” to the New Popular Front, the left-wing alliance that won the early elections two months ago and has already announced its no-confidence vote in Parliament. Its candidates, in particular the senior civil servant Lucie Castets, were not even taken into consideration, while the president preferred to look to the right: after having rejected Macron’s proposals regarding the former Socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and the centrist president of the Hauts de France region, Xavier Bertrand, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National did not veto Barnier’s.
During the handover between the youngest of the heads of government of the Fifth Republic and the oldest (36 and 73 years old respectively), in front of the eighteenth-century Hotel Matignon, the outgoing Prime Minister gave a long and very harsh speech towards the President of the Republic, who was never appointed, whom he reproached for having had little time to help France.
He expressed his “frustration” at having to leave office just 8 months after his appointment, and left his successor a legacy of dossiers and reforms underway, starting with education, which, he hoped, must remain a priority. Barnier thanked his young predecessor “for having given me not just lessons, but the teachings of what one learns as a prime minister, even if he only lasted 8 months”.
Both condemned the “sectarianism” that, Attal said, French politics is “sick of.” “When you are sectarian, it is because you are not sure of your ideas,” said Barnier, who also spoke of the need to “respect all political forces.” When the Elysée announced the choice, Marine Le Pen commented favorably that Barnier “has never ostracized the Rassemblement National” because “he is a man of dialogue.”
Furthermore, in 2022, Barnier had called for a moratorium on immigration. “We will not participate in his government,” Le Pen said, “but we are waiting for his general policy speech.” Party president Jordan Bardella echoed her: “We will judge based on how the major emergencies of the French are finally addressed.” The benevolence expressed by the far right risks complicating Barnier’s task, however, as he has been charged by the Head of State with “forming a united government at the service of the country.”
Former Socialist President Francois Hollande commented that “the far right has given a form of liberation” to the Gaullist exponent while the leader of France Insoumise Jean-Luc Mèlenchon also contested “a prime minister appointed with the permission of the RN”. Marine Tondelier, leader of the Ecologists, the third force in the alliance of four (with the French Communist Party) that has helped stem the rise of the far right, accused Macron of having “made the Republican front dance the waltz” that had prevented the RN from winning the legislative elections only two months ago.
The no-confidence vote announced by the 193 elected leftists will make the RN’s abstention essential for the creation of a new government. La France Insoumise and the student movements have called for a street mobilization for Saturday, while the CGT, the main union, has not joined but considers it legitimate. Barnier’s choice, said the general secretary Sophie Binet, is proof of his “contempt for the vote of French voters”.