France has a new prime minister. Who is Michel Barnier?
Global News
The appointment of Michel Barnier follows weeks of intense efforts by Emmanuel Macron and his aides to bring an intense period of political turmoil to an end.
President Emmanuel Macron named on Thursday the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister, after more than 50 days of a caretaker government.
The appointment of the 73-year-old Barnier follows weeks of intense efforts by Macron and his aides to bring an intense period of political turmoil to an end by finding a government leader who can survive in France’s newly fractured political landscape.
Barnier faces the tough task of having to work with the bitterly divided, hung parliament that emerged from legislative elections that Macron called in June, in a huge surprise.
Without a legislative majority of his own behind him, Barnier will need to find loose ad hoc groupings of backers in the National Assembly to tackle France’s pressing issues — including the budget for 2025.
Barnier could quickly face possible attempts in parliament to topple the new government he will now put together and lead. Opponents of Macron on the left of French politics immediately portrayed the appointment of the conservative Barnier as a slap in the face of those who voted for them.
A statement from Macron’s office announcing Barnier’s appointment said he’d been tasked “with forming a unifying government to serve the country and the French people.”
“This appointment comes after an unprecedented cycle of consultations during which, in accordance with his constitutional duty, the president ensured that the prime minister and the future government would meet the conditions to be as stable as possible and give themselves the chances of uniting as broadly as possible,” the statement said.
Barnier, a career politician proud of his humble roots in France’s Alpine region of Haute-Savoie, is no stranger to complex and difficult tasks: He was the European Union’s chief negotiator in the difficult talks with Britain over its Brexit departure from the bloc.
