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President Emmanuel Macron has named the EU’s former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s next prime minister in a bid to break a post-election political stalemate.
The Élysée Palace said on Thursday that Barnier had been “tasked with forming a unifying government to serve the country and the French”.
Barnier, 73, is a veteran of France’s conservative Les Républicains (LR), a party Macron has wooed to find a candidate who can command majority support in the National Assembly and who will not seek to undo the president’s past pro-business reforms.
Although Barnier comes from a rival centre-right party, Macron has chosen a premier with significant standing on the European stage, having served as France’s EU commissioner in the high-profile financial services portfolio for four years, then later as Brussels’ negotiator with London on Brexit.
Pressure had been building for Macron to name a prime minister two months after a snap election that ended up weakening him, with his own centrist camp losing seats, while other forces on the right and left fell short of an outright majority.
The looming deadline for the start of 2025 budget discussions in parliament next month — particularly urgent given the poor state of France’s public finances — had added to the need to break the deadlock.
As president, Macron appoints the prime minister, and Barnier will now discuss cabinet appointments with the president. Parliament is not required to approve Barnier’s appointment, but opposition parties in the lower house can table no-confidence motions to topple a government.
The new prime minister will therefore need cross-party support in the hung parliament. That means that Macron has by no means resolved the political crisis triggered by the snap election, as any of Barnier’s legislative moves could prompt a backlash from one group or another.
It also puts Macron in the ironic position of needing backing from the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) of Marine Le Pen if the Barnier government is to endure, given that the choice of Barnier marks a rightward tilt that left-wing parties in France oppose.
During the snap vote, which came after a surge by the far-right in European elections, parties on the right and left including politicians from Macron’s own party had worked together tactically in as many constituencies as possible to block RN candidates from winning.
The result was that a leftwing alliance won the largest number of seats, but was still short of a majority, followed by Macron’s centrist supporters and allies, while the far-right RN came third but emerged as the largest single political party.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the far-left France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party, part of the victorious left-wing alliance, immediately blasted Barnier’s nomination, saying his camp had been robbed after its election score.
“We have a member of the party that registered the smallest score,” Mélenchon told reporters.
Le Pen has so far cautiously welcomed the appointment. Some in her party had criticised Barnier for being a “fossilised” remnant of a pre-Macron era, but they did not say they would block him.
“Michel Barnier seems at least to meet one of the criteria we’d demanded, which was to have someone who would respect different political forces and be able to speak with the Rassemblement National,” Le Pen told reporters. “That will be useful as compromises will be needed to solve the budget situation.”
Eurasia Group analyst Mujtaba Rahman said Barnier’s international profile would help in the country’s bid to reassure markets over the economy and public spending. The new prime minister has also served in several French cabinet positions, including foreign minister.
“He’s a safe pair of hands known to market participants, known to Europe, and the domestic political elite within France,” Rahman said.
The appointment comes after a frenzied week in which prime ministerial contenders came and went, and Macron dithered between options, including the Socialist former prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
Barnier will replace Gabriel Attal, a former Macron ally appointed as recently as January in a reshuffle, who became France’s youngest ever prime minister at 34.
But relations between Attal and Macron have soured since the president called the snap election — a surprise decision that many in his own camp criticised as a bad move.
Barnier’s nomination crowns a long and varied career for the EU’s former negotiator in Brexit talks with Britain. He competed to be the LR presidential candidate in France’s 2022 elections but lost out to his rival Valérie Pécresse, who was ultimately unsuccessful.
In that campaign, Barnier took a hard line on immigration, proposing a three- to five-year moratorium on non-EU arrivals to France and claiming it was “out of control”. The position surprised some who had known him in Brussels, but could make Le Pen’s party see him more favourably.