Two months after the final round of the early legislative election, unnecessarily called by Emmanuel Macron, the French President final chose a new prime minister: Michel Barnier.
He is 73 and, therefore, President Macron, LR internal rivals such as Laurent Wauquiez and others do not view him as a potential rival.
Michel Barnier was born at La Tronche (Isère Department in the French Alps), into a Gaullist family in 1951. He is the youngest of three sons of a man who had a small leather and textile company and a woman who was a member of the Christian left.
In 1972, Michel Barnier graduated from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP). His friendship with the future prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a classmate at ESCP, dates back to those days. In addition, Michel Barnier has been close to Philippe Séguin and his gaullisme social until the vote on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 separated the two. That’s why some refer to Michel Barnier as a “centrist” although, in reality, he is anchored more on the political right. He was a member of UDR, RPR, UMP and, since 2015, LR.
He has never belonged to a “political stable” (écurie politique), and has never sought to form one. He has always been his own man, a man compatible with many political forces, which is one recipe for his long political career.
According to the journalist Ludovic Vigogne, the only real clash with Emmanuel Macron came in 2019 during the European elections, when Michel Barnier supported the LR list led by François-Xavier Bellamy, while President Macron thought Barnier was going to make a gesture towards the presidential majority list led by Nathalie Loiseau.
Michel Barnier has been active on pratically all political levels possible: he has been a local politician (councillor of Savoie), president of the Departmental Council of Savoie, member of the National Assembly for Savoie, a Senator for the Savoie region, minister under three French prime ministers, member of the European Parliament, European Commissioner for Regional Policy, European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services as well as EU chief negociator regarding the UK’s exit from the EU aka Brexit.
In 1978, at the age of 27, Michel Barnier became the youngest member of the National Assembly. In 1992, he successfully co-organized the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympics in Albertville (French Savoie region).
Michel Barnier is economically liberal, pro-European and environmentally friendly. That is why, in 1981, he was the only Gaullist not in support of Jacques Chirac but of the (economically) liberal Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
That is why, in 1973-74, he worked as chargé de mission for Robert Poujade, the first French ministre de la Protection de la nature et de l’Environnement, and, in 1993, when the subject was still not high on the agenda, he requested to become Minister of the Environment (1993 to 1995) during the years of the second cohabitation under the RPR Prime Minister Edouard Balladur and the Socialist President François Mitterrand. In 2021, Michel Barnier told the French magazine Paris Match: “You cannot become president of the Republic of you don’t like trees.”
Now, in 2024, Michel Barnier is facing again a kind of cohabitation because, as member of the LR group with only 47 members in the National Assembly, he will govern together with President Macron from the Renaissance Party (and other forces).
Because he is pro-European, from 1995 until 1997, Michel Barnier served as Minister for European Affairs. Michel Barnier was not amused when he was ousted by President Chirac just after one year as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the third government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin (2004 to 2005).
From 2007 until 2009, Michel Barnier served as French Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries before embarking on a career on the European level.
Michel Barnier was European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services from 2010 to 2014, vice president of the European People’s Party (EPP) from 2010 to 2015 and, from October 2016 to 2021, the EU’s chief negotiator on Britain’s exit from the European Union.
In 2024, President Macron first thought of Bernard Cazeneuve, prime minister 2016-2017 under President Hollande, as the new PM. But when Cazeneuve was inflexible regarding Macron’s pension reform, pushed through thanks to the infamous (because undemocratic) Section 3 of Article 49 of the Constution (article 49, alinéa 3, known as 49-3), which gives the government the ability to pass bills without the approbation of the parliament, that is without a majority, Macron renounced on the nomination of Cazeneuve. In addition, the extreme-right Rassemblement National (RN) of Marine Le Pen had signaled that they would immediately have censured Cazeneuve, as the RN would have censured a government of the economically liberal Xavier Bertrand (LR), which was the last, other serious option as prime minister President Macron was pursuing.
In short, some on the left are right when they are saying that Marine Le Pen and the Rassemblement National were kingmakers when it comes to President Macrons choice of a new prime minister.
Marine Le Pen said: Michel Barnier is at least responding to the first criteria which we reqested, that is a man who respects all policial forces, a man capable to talk to the Rassemblement National, the first group (in fact: party) in the National Assembly.
Previously, the RN National Assembly member Jean-Philippe Tanguy had qualified Michel Barnier as the most stupid politician of the Fifth Republic. He immediately got a slap on the wrist by Marine Le Pen. Tanguy was however right when he said that Michel Barnier was opposed to the proportionelle. However, proportional representation in parliament would be one measure to fight voter dissatisfaction, combat voters turning their back on democracy because they do not feel represented.
During the 2021 Les Républicains (LR) leadership election, won by Valérie Pecresse, who later faltered in the 2022 presidential election and ended up with only 4.78% (!) of the vote, Michel Barnier positioned himself on the right, considering Eric Ciotti his main rival on that spectrum of the party. He proposed a referendum on tighter immigration in France. On the European level, he advocated a non-European immigration freeze for three to five years. He told the magazine Le Point that, as president, he would propose to “immediately stop regularizations, rigorously limit family reunification, reduce the reception of foreign students and the systematic execution of the double penalty”. He favored expanding prison capacity by 20,000 and imposing mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes. The far-right Rassemblement National went as far as accusing Michel Barnier of “plagiarism” regarding their ideas on immigration. It did not help him. With 23.9%, Michel Barnier ended up third in the first round of the LR primary, behind Eric Ciotti with 25.6% and Valéry Pécresse with 25%. He was elminiated and, subsequently, (rightly) endorsed Valéry Pécresse against the far-right Eric Ciotti who, in 2024, infamously joined forces with Marine Le Pen. In 2021, Pécresse won the second round of the LR primary with 61% against Ciotti with 39%.
In 2024, with the choice of Michel Barnier as prime minister, President Macron once again anchors Renaissance to the right. LR only controls 47 parliamentarians in the 577-member National Assembly. Three electoral alliances ended up clearly stronger in the 2024 legislative election: the left-wing New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire) with some 180 seats, Macron’s electoral alliance Ensemble with 159 (they lost 89 seats!) and Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and Allies with 142 seats.
The French instability is far from over. Macron’s Renaissance and LR together are still far from a majority in the National Assembly. Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and the Nouveau Front Populaire could at any time sink the new Barnier government.
In the 2022 parliamentary election already, President Macron had lost his majority notably because, after his reelection as president, Macron did not fight for a parliamentary majority as if he had already done all the work necessary. He and, more importantly France, are paying a heavy price today for Macron’s erratic behavior and bad policy choices, notably when in comes to the French budget deficit and the public debt during the pandemic and beyond.
The first task of the new government will be to come forward with a reasonable 2025 budget and, in the longer run, to balance the budget and bring down the public debt, which stands at around 111% of GDP. The last balanced budget dates back to 1974!
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Michel Barnier. Photograph by the European People’s Party, EPP Political Assembly, May 2023. Via Wikipedia/Wikimedia.
Article added on September 6, 2024 at 15:37 German time.
