New French Prime Minister Michel Barnier has yet to appoint a government, still less lay out its agenda. However, three-quarters of voters already believe that he would soon be on his way out, despite French President Emmanuel Macron’s hope that the former EU Brexit negotiator can safeguard his legacy after multiple misjudgments.
Barnier himself once described the president’s leadership as “solitary and arrogant.” That helps to explain the disastrous snap election. It saw support surge for National Rally leader Marine Le Pen’s far right in the first round, before the withdrawal of candidates by a republican front and tactical voting rode to the rescue in the second. The outcome was a legislature essentially split into three blocs — left, center and far right — in a country without a recent history of coalition building.
Macron worsened matters by rejecting the left-wing New Popular Front prime ministerial candidate Lucie Castets, which startled everyone by coming first in July. The left’s bickering and unwillingness to compromise has not helped itself. It was also true that such a government had a minimal chance of survival. However, the president should have allowed matters to take their course. Instead, he picked a prime minister whose fourth-placed The Republicans party holds only 47 of 577 seats and which did not sacrifice candidates to see off Le Pen’s National Rally, as the left and center did.
Barnier may be a dealmaker, but the truth is that he has been chosen as much for who he is not as who he is. Macron has been casting around for a right-leaning candidate who not only has a fighting chance of avoiding outright rejection by 289 MPs, but who is also willing to protect his legacy, especially his unpopular rise in the pension age. While for most of his career Barnier has been regarded as on the center-right, he voted against the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1981 and took a grim, hardline swing during an unsuccessful bid to be the right’s presidential candidate in 2021. That included a proposed moratorium on all immigration — including family reunions — from outside the EU. Speaking after his appointment, he said that “there still is a feeling that our borders are sieves.”
Le Pen said that he shares her party’s views on immigration. Barnier enjoys his position thanks to the far right’s acquiescence; he is captive to its caprice. That is hardly cause for celebration. Nor is it a long-term solution, since Le Pen needs him to fail.
Barnier’s first, immense challenge would be to draw up a budget next month and push it through. His experience and political skills might help his government win some leeway from Brussels over its spending plans, reassuring the EU that France is slashing its debt. However, it would be harder to make the politics and economics add up at home.
If the public is proved right about Barnier’s political lifespan, Macron would soon need to find a replacement. However, each time he rolls the dice, the odds get worse. Appointing a representative of the “old world” of politics — which he once vowed to sweep away — hardly meets the public demand for change. Turnout surged in this summer’s election to the highest level since 1981, but the resulting political maneuvering is increasing disenchantment with the democratic process. July’s second-round result, which brought such relief, is now being squandered.
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