Conservative Michel Barnier, former Brexit negotiator, new prime minister | The Duty

he is President Emmanuel Macron This Thursday was announced Michel Barnier with the task of forming a “unity government” after weeks of anticipation for the outcome of the early legislative elections. The first challenge for this veteran of politics and diplomacy is to create a majority in the Parliament that will allow him to overcome the expected prosecution movements.

End of suspense: the nMichel Barnier is the new Prime Minister. At 73, he is the oldest person to hold the post in the Fifth Republic. As a member of the Conservative party The Republicans, his first mission is to “create a government of unity,” said the Elysee Palace in Paris this Thursday.

“The president ensured that the Prime Minister and the incoming government met the conditions to be as stable as possible” and to bring the maximum amount of support into Parliament, the statement said President.

Barnier is an experienced politician in both the French territory as a European. He was a minister in the country he came from several times, but he was also a European commissioner and the main negotiator for the United Kingdom leaving the European Union.

Macron’s bet is that the new government count on Republican support and center-right macronism. Enough support if the left and far right coalition come together to criticize the government.

When the name of Michel Barnier was announced, MP Marine Le Pen announced at the National Rally (AN) that her group would not present a movement of accusation against the Government.

“We have set a series of conditions, the first of which is to have a Prime Minister who respects the voters of the AN,” he told the media. “I think Barnier is meeting it this benchmark,” he said.

On the other hand, the leader of the radical leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon He complained, because “the elections were stolen from the French.” For his part, the socialist leader Olivier Faure believed that “we are entering a regime crisis.”

Macron opened a political crisis in France with the advance in June of the legislative elections scheduled for 2027, which left the National Assembly (lower house) with three main blocs, all far from the absolute majority.

Although the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition won the elections with 193 deputies, the center-right president refused to nominate his candidate for prime minister, economist Lucie Castets, in the name of “stability.”

A time of uncertainty

At the same time, Barnier must announce what his government program will be. After his brief return to French politics in 2021, to participate unsuccessfully in the LR primaries for the 2022 presidential election, he specifically advocated a “moratorium” on immigration.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right party assured that they would wait for her general policy speech before finally deciding on her criticism. The conditions brought forward by the RN are a reform of the electoral system and new legislation in 2025.

In France, the prime minister is appointed by the president and does not need to be confirmed in Parliament. But time was of the essence for Macron as the future government must present its budgets for 2025 by October 1 in the context of a growing deficit.

The new prime minister must confirm whether he follows the proposal of the Minister of Economy in action, Bruno Le Maire, to make cuts of 16 billion euros ($17.65 billion).

Macron’s desire to keep his pension reform he implemented by decree in 2023 and promised to restore the NFP also weighed on his prime ministerial election.