POLITICS – The waltz of candidates for Matignon continues. For several days, under the incredulous eye of the French, the Élysée has been throwing out names, testing their chances, observing the reactions and finally withdrawing them. Will Michel Barnier, one of the last to be pulled out of the hat, suffer the same fate? According to the statements of several RN deputies, installed as arbiters by Emmanuel Macron, the chances of the former Brexit negotiator are slim.
How Emmanuel Macron trapped himself with his criterion of “no censorship” of the future Prime Minister
« Michel Barnier is known throughout Paris as one of the stupidest politicians the Fifth Republic has produced, understanding nothing of what he is given apart from the files.mocked the delegate president of the RN group in the Assembly Jean-Philippe Tanguy on France Inter this Thursday, September 5. We’re constantly doing Jurassic Park, that is to say, going looking for fossils. [pour leur] bring back to life.
A similar mockery from his colleague Julien Odoul, who recalls: “In 1985, Michel Barnier was on an RPR poster against François Mitterrand. I had just been born. The French want renewal”.
“He doesn’t make anyone dream”
According to several sources, the trail of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jacques Chirac, aged 73, is “seriously studied” by the Élysée. The man, first elected as a deputy in 1978, must give guarantees of stability to the President in order to be appointed Prime Minister. That is to say, demonstrate that he would not be censored in a few days, and therefore, ensure that the RN would not be rejected. Things seem to be off to a bad start. “Michel Barnier doesn’t make anyone dream”said Sébastien Chenu on BFMTV. No one went to vote on July 7 saying: “Great, maybe we’ll have Michel Barnier as Prime Minister.” Before moderating his remarks somewhat: “It’s not at all our political line but he is rather respectful towards the RN. I’ll wait and see.”.
A start of openness that contrasts with the immediate censorship promised to Xavier Bertrand who, on multiple occasions, called for the RN to be defeated at the polls, including by calling for a vote for the left. Last February, in the middle of the European election campaign, Michel Barnier gave an interview to the news site Euroactiv. He then delivered a message of firmness against the extreme right, explaining that he had “no complacency” in “no weakness” face au RN : “Never, never, never”. He castigated in the same vein “electoral opportunism” by Marine Le Pen.
A year earlier, on the airwaves of France Culture, he held the same line: “ Coming from where I come from, from the Gaullist movement – and we know with what violence the French extreme right from which Madame Le Pen and all her friends come have shown towards General de Gaulle and Gaullism – there is no weakness, no compromise possible”The former European Commissioner, on the other hand, called on LR to ” negotiate “…with the presidential camp. Which now finds itself forced, by its refusal to turn to the left, to compromise with the RN.
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