Michel Barnier, the prime minister chosen Thursday by French President Emmanuel Macron to form a government with an extremely fragmented National Assembly, is a veteran conservative politician with a career that began more than half a century ago and a markedly pro-European profile.
According to the criteria of
Barnier, who is originally from Savoy (he was born near Grenoble 73 years ago) where he began his political activity, has been in the background in recent years, especially since In 2021, he was eliminated in the first round of the primaries of his party, The Republicans (LR), to designate the candidate who would be the Elysee candidate the following year.
Until then, and for five years, he was the negotiator appointed by the European Commission to discuss with the United Kingdom the conditions of its exit from the European Union.
Michel Barnier.
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‘Mr Brexit’, as he was popularly known at the time, was appointed to this post, which required a strong right-hand man – the interests of the Twenty-Seven had to be reconciled in an often tough struggle with London – taking advantage of his deep knowledge of the intricacies of the European institutions.
Not in vain, He was a member of the European Parliament, vice-president of the European People’s Party (EPP), to which the Spanish People’s Party belongs, among others, and, above all, twice a European Commissioner.
The first was between 1999 and 2004 as head of Regional Policy and the second was between 2010 and 2014 as head of the Internal Market.
All those years in Brussels will be very useful, if he manages to form a government, to discuss a very sensitive issue such as the poor state of French public finances, with a deficit of 5.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) last year and which will most likely increase even further in 2024 and 2025.
French President Emmanuel Macron.
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The European Commission opened at the end of July an excessive deficit procedure for France, which involves close monitoring and a give-and-take to ensure that the French public deficit eventually returns to complying with the rule of not exceeding 3% of GDP.
Barnier’s CV
In France he has been a minister four times, first as Minister of the Environment between 1993 and 1995, during a cohabitation with the presidency of the socialist François Mitterrand, and then as head of European Affairs from 1995 to 1997, already with Jacques Chirac at the Elysée.
He also served as Foreign Minister under Chirac in 2004-2005 and was also Agriculture Minister under Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007 to 2009.
Graduated from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce in Paris, He began his political career as a member of the ministerial cabinets of right-wing governments between 1973 and 1977, which he combined with his first public post as General Councillor of Savoy, in the Alps.
President Emmanuel Macron and former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.
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In that department he was president of the general council (equivalent to a provincial council) between 1982 and 1999 and a member of the French National Assembly for two terms, between 1978 and 1995.
On the website of his political party, Patriots and Europeans, it is highlighted that Since he was 14, he has been a member of the “Gaullist movement”, in reference to the legacy of General Charles de Gaulle, and has carried out all his mandates and missions without ever leaving LR.
Barnier meets, in principle, the two conditions that Macron had set for appointing a prime minister.
The first is to be able to hold out for a while in the event of a vote of no confidence, and not to dismantle the main policies that the head of state has implemented since he arrived at the Elysée Palace in 2017, in particular the reform of pensions or the reduction of taxes on capital and companies.
