French President Emmanuel Macron has named conservative Michel Barnier as prime minister, ending a nearly two-month search for a successor to Gabriel Attal.
According to a statement from the Elysee Palace, the appointment of the man who was the European Union’s chief negotiator for Brexit as head of the French government “comes after an unprecedented cycle of consultations”. The chosen one belongs to the fourth most voted party in the legislative elections, the Republicans, but Macron believes “that the prime minister and the government will have the most stable conditions possible”.
The French head of state began by refusing to appoint anyone before the end of the Paris Olympic Games, so as not to “create confusion” during the sporting event.
After an initial series of consultations with party representatives, he refused to appoint a minority government from the New Popular Front, the coalition that won the elections, in order to maintain “institutional stability” in France. He therefore rejected the name of Lucie Castets, proposed by the left as Prime Minister.
“A government based solely on the programme and parties proposed by the alliance with the most deputies, the New Popular Front, would immediately be the target of a motion of censure by all the other groups represented in the National Assembly”, he considered, in line with the then Prime Minister, Attal, who assured that the coalition supporting Macron “would move forward with an immediate motion of censure if the new Executive included ministers” from the radical left party France Insoumise.
The talks continued and the French president considered appointing Bernard Cazeneuve as prime minister, but he realized that the former socialist head of government would not have parliamentary support and would intend to revoke the reform that the previous government made to pensions.
The choice ultimately fell on Barnier, a figure on the French right who had served in the European Commission several times, including during the government of Portugal’s Durão Barroso. The new French prime minister became known for leading the European Union’s negotiating teams in the process of the United Kingdom’s exit from the single market in 2016.
Macron thus agreed with the former French head of state, Nicolas Sarkozy, who recently argued that “the right should take responsibility for governing” rather than “giving in to the easy option of appointing someone from the left”.
In the early legislative elections, none of the three blocs – Marine Le Pen’s far right, the presidential bloc and the New Popular Front – obtained an absolute majority. The left-wing coalition won, although the largest parliamentary group is the National Union..
