Appointed Prime Minister on Thursday, Michel Barnier, 73, successfully negotiated the conditions of Brexit and will now have to use all his diplomatic skills to lead a minority government in the Assembly and try to finally become a prophet in his country.
Applauded in Brussels for his negotiating skills, to the point that his name was circulated to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker in 2019 at the head of the European Commission, this Savoyard, member of the right-wing party Les Républicains (LR), has forged a reputation as a “pragmatist”.
“He is a statesman. A man of consensus and negotiation as he proved during the Brexit negotiations, which is essential in the period we are experiencing,” LR MP Vincent Jeanbrun told AFP, convinced that he will succeed in uniting “well beyond his camp.”
– The “Barnier method” –
“He is one of the rare political figures who can demonstrate solid experience at the territorial, national and European levels,” rejoices LR senator Agnès Evren, who speaks of a “Barnier method” which “combines respect for his interlocutor and solidity of convictions.”
Qualities which have certainly seduced Emmanuel Macron, who is looking for a personality capable of thwarting a majority of censure in the Assembly, but which have for the moment been more applauded in Brussels than in France and even in his political family of the Republicans.
He represents “everything that the French do not want. He is stratospheric, disconnected and he will continue or end up killing the right,” laments an LR parliamentarian to the AFP.
He also bit the dust in 2021 in the first round of the LR primaries to designate the right-wing candidate for the 2022 presidential election.
Long positioned on a centrist line of Gaullism, Michel Barnier had then initiated an unexpected rightward turn, without however managing to convince the activists who preferred Valérie Pécresse. He had pleaded for a “moratorium” of three to five years on immigration.
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An old wolf of French politics, he entered politics in 1973. A long career which led RN MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy to say that he was “fossilized from political life”.
Decades of walking the corridors of power, in Paris and Brussels, where this tall man with white hair has forged a reputation for listening, arguing and trying to convince.
“Behind a smooth exterior hides a tortured personality. He is a worrier and needs advice. He draws his strength from a team of colleagues in whom he has complete confidence,” explains one of his close friends.
Michel Barnier sat in several right-wing governments in France in the 1990s and 2000s, with various portfolios (European Affairs, Environment, Agriculture, Foreign Affairs, etc.), was European Commissioner twice, responsible for Regional Policies and the Financial Framework (1999-2004), then responsible for the Internal Market and Services (2009-2014).
– A “mountain man” –
Married and father of three children, Michel Barnier readily recalls that he is a “mountain man”, a way of transforming into an asset what, in France, can constitute a handicap: not being part of the Parisian establishment and not graduating from the ENA but, in his case, from the Ecole supérieure de commerce de Paris.
In his office in Brussels, he would happily show his visitors a photo of himself posing alongside the triple Olympic ski champion Jean-Claude Killy, with whom he successfully organised the 1992 Winter Olympics in his town of Albertville.
Another showed him during the release of journalist Florence Aubenas, a hostage in Iraq, obtained while he was in charge of the Quai d’Orsay.
His European career has not always been crowned with success. Jean-Claude Juncker beat him in 2014 in the race for the presidency of the European Commission at the congress of the European People’s Party (EPP, right).
His appointment as Brexit negotiator in 2016 allowed him to bounce back and refine his international stature.
“We could have had much worse than the pragmatic and experienced Barnier,” commented Syed Kamall, head of the British Conservative Party delegation to the European Parliament, who even judged Michel Barnier’s English “good enough to allow him to deal directly with his interlocutors.”
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