EU’s top Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier appointed as new French Prime Minister by Macron
FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron has appointed top EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as his next Prime Minister.
After weeks of talks right-wing technocrat Barnier, 73, who led the EU’s talks with Britain over its exit from the Union was selected for the job.
Macron had considered a string of potential candidates in recent weeks, none of which mustered enough support to guarantee a stable government.
Although there is no guarantee Barnier’s government will manage to get reforms adopted by a hung parliament.
France’s government was rocked by an inconclusive and turbulent snap election in July.
It sparked almost two-months of a political stalemate where no majority party was carved out to lead the country’s National Assembly.
Macron ultimately landed on Barnier, a highly experienced technocrat who is not a serving elected MP.
An official at Matignon, the Prime Minister’s official residence in Paris, said on Thursday afternoon: “Michel Barnier has been named prime minister by President Macron.”
It means he will become the oldest prime minister in the history of the 5th Republic.
And he will be taking over from the youngest PM, Gabriel Attal, who is 35.
Barnier immediately faces the possibility of a no-confidence vote in parliament, because of his apparent lack of democratic legitimacy.
He was last in parliament in 1993, and is currently a member of The Republicans (LR) party – the current name for the Gaullist conservatives, part of the opposition.
Pressure has been mounting for Macron to appoint a new PM after a coalition led by his Renaissance party came second in July’s snap election.
It was won by the Popular Front – a Leftist coalition specifically aimed at keeping the far-Right National Rally party from gaining power.
Barnier did not emerge as a serious candidate to run a new French government until Thursday, when he was seen at the Elysee Palace.
He tried to become LR’s presidential candidate in 2022, but was eliminated in the first round of party voting with less than 5% of the vote.
During the campaign, he took a hard line on immigration, saying it was “out of control”.
On Thursday, Jean-Philippe Tanguy, a National Rally MP, said Mr Barnier represented the “fossilised old world”, accusing the Élysée Palace of “going down the Jurassic Park”.
Who is Michel Barnier? EU’s Brexit negotiator and former French government minister
MICHEL Barnier is a senior EU politician who was tasked with the job of negotiating Brexit.
After taking the position in December 2016, Mr Barnier, 73, proved to be the right man for the job from the EU’s side, showing himself to be a tough negotiator.
Michel Barnier first got into politics as a young Gaullist aged 15.
He came to national attention in 1986 when he won Albertville’s bid to host the 1992 Winter Olympics in Savoy.
Diplomats in Brussels have suggested he still resents Britain after losing his job when the French government lost a referendum on the European Constitution.
Diplomats have said he is “far from a soul mate for Britain” and is hostile to the “Anglo-Saxon” free market model of capitalism.
After a term in the Commission as regional policy chief from 1999 to 2004, Mr Barnier has held a number of ministerial posts including foreign affairs, agriculture and environment.
He served as France’s foreign minister between 2004 and 2005, losing his job after his government lost the European Constitution referendum.
Mr Barnier infuriated British ministers with his call for more financial regulation when he held the post of EU commissioner for internal markets and services between 2010 and 2014.
In 2006 he worked as a special adviser to José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission.