Brussels – It took exactly 60 days for Emmanuel Macron to find the right balance for the new government to lead France. After weeks of deep political crisis, which at times seemed on the verge of turning into institutional paralysis, on Thursday (September 5), the head of state finally appointed Michel Barnier as prime minister, tasked with forming a new executive. A well-known face of Transalpine neogollism, the 73-year-old has spent a lifetime in both national and European institutions. Now, he must seek to restore stability to a deeply divided country, especially with the difficult budget law to produce in the autumn.
In the end, he played the game almost entirely alone, monsieur le Président. A game that began with the call for early elections on June 9, to catch off guard the far-right of Rassemblement national (Rn) led by Marine Le Pen, which had just trounced the liberal center in the European elections. Passing through the “theft” of the government from the progressive coalition, that Nouveau front populaire (Nfp) which, having come first in the polls but without an absolute majority in the Assemblée nationale, was demanding the presidency of the executive for the Parisian economist Lucie Castets. But Macron, after long consultations with various political forces (a novelty for politics across the Alps), decided otherwise.
The left of the Nfp, the head of state argued, would not have survived the confidence vote that would have come at the first opportunity. As for the far-right of the Rn, there was no discussion. Thus, only the center remained, his liberal center, which after the drubbing in the European elections had miraculously risen to achieve an unexpected second place in the legislative elections. And which, in a balkanized chamber like never before, must try to broaden its parliamentary base towards other moderate and pro-European political forces, as highlighted by former prime minister Élisabeth Borne (a party mate of Macron), for whom now “it will be necessary to find compromises between progressive left and republican right”. A task far from guaranteed.
Barnier, who will be the oldest prime minister in the Cinquième République and will succeed the youngest ever, Gabriel Attal, has been elected a parliamentarian seven times (five as a deputy and two as a senator) and has held ministerial positions in Paris four times (in Environment, European Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and Agriculture). His political career is firmly within the neogollist center-right: from the Rassemblement pour la République (Rpr), the home of conservatives loyal to Jacques Chirac and critical of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s line, Barnier joined the Union pour un mouvement populaire (Ump) of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2002, culminating in 2015 in the new party named Les Républicains (Lr), for which he sought to win the primaries to become the presidential candidate in 2022 but lost the nomination (which went to Valérie Pécresse).
Barnier also has a long experience in Europe: first appointed Commissioner in 1999 in the Prodi Commission (with a mandate for Regional Policies), he was reappointed between 2010 and 2014 in the second Barroso Commission (where he held the Internal Market portfolio and then was responsible ad interim for Industry) after a brief interlude as a Member of the European Parliament (for a few months between 2009 and 2010), concluding his Brussels career as chief negotiator for the EU on Brexit from 2016 to 2021.
As expected, Barnier’s appointment was met with relief from the president’s centrist allies and by various European figures. MEP Sandro Gozi, an Italian elected in France and a member of the Renew Europe group, welcomed the choice of “a person of absolute political and human value, a friend with whom I have always worked very well over the last twenty years,” describing him as “someone capable of building and expanding consensus around him to help French democracy out of its current difficulties.” The (re)elected president of the European executive, Ursula von der Leyen, congratulated the former commissioner: “I know that Michel Barnier cares about the interests of Europe and France, as demonstrated by his long experience,” she wrote on X.
But on the other side of the political spectrum, the appointment of the conservative prime minister was deemed an insult to democracy, a theft from voters and their elected representatives. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the radical left party La France insoumise (the largest among those constituting the Nfp), lashed out at the President of the Republic: “Emmanuel Macron officially denies the results of the elections,” he said, emphasizing how the Républicains were among the worst losers at the polls. According to the insoumis leader, the head of state has “stolen the elections from the French people,” while former socialist president François Hollande pointed a finger at a non-aggression pact struck between Macron and the radical Le Pen right. According to him, it is “almost certain” that Barnier’s appointment could have come “because the Rn, precisely the far right, gave a kind of endorsement” in the form, presumably, of the promise not to challenge him in the Assembly. Announcing a censure vote was, instead, the same Parti socialiste (Ps), also a member of the Nfp: “Michel Barnier has neither political legitimacy nor republican legitimacy. This extremely serious situation is unacceptable for us democrats,” reads a party statement.
In short, the new head of the Transalpine government now faces the difficult task of healing the deep – and still bleeding – political wounds in the country. Ensuring productive work in Parliament will be the first, complicated test for Barnier, whose agenda already includes a date circled in red, which is approaching dangerously. It is October 1, the deadline by which the new executive should present in the Assembly the draft budget law for 2025, an appointment that is particularly delicate, with a deficit potentially reaching 5.6 percent in 2024 and hitting 6.2 percent the following year. All this under the watchful eyes of Brussels, which last July opened an infringement procedure for excessive deficit against Paris (and six other capitals, including Rome).
Technically, the prime minister does not need a vote of confidence from the deputies to formally assume his functions, but it is likely that the new prime minister will still ask the Assembly to approve his programmatic lines in the coming days. At that point, we will see, numbers in hand, whether Macron’s political gamble has proven successful.