French President Emmanuel Macron named Michel Barnier, a traditional conservative and the European Union’s former Brexit negotiator, as prime minister Thursday, nearly two months after legislative elections that kept the far right from power but left France in an unprecedented political deadlock.
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Barnier, known in France and Europe as an experienced politician who can work across party lines, defended E.U. positions in contentious negotiations over the terms of Britain’s exit from the bloc. He also served multiple terms as an E.U. commissioner and in previous French governments, including as environment minister and foreign minister. He sought to challenge Macron in the 2022 presidential election but failed to win his right-wing party’s nomination.
The Elysée presidential palace said Thursday that Barnier had the best chance of achieving political stability and garnering the broadest possible support, acknowledging that the appointment came after “an unprecedented cycle of consultations.”
The challenge for Macron was that his gamble in calling snap elections resulted in no alliance securing the 289 seats needed for a governing majority in the National Assembly. And while the president can pick a prime minister, the candidate must win the approval of lawmakers.
France is not used to coalition-building, and whoever Macron named risked facing a no-confidence motion that would immediately bring down the new government.
The New Popular Front — a broad left-wing alliance that papered over internal differences to block the far right — had argued that its preferred candidate, little-known civil servant Lucie Castets, should be prime minister after it won the most seats in the elections.
But the far-right National Rally — which came in third in the elections but with the clout of 143 seats — had vowed to block any prime minister candidate from the left.
Thursday’s decision ends a period of high uncertainty, during which Macron’s ministers remained in office as a caretaker government without much power, while an October deadline to present a new budget loomed. Macron tasked Barnier with “forming a unifying government in service of the country and the French people.”
Barnier said his government would respond as much as possible “to the anger, the suffering, the feeling of abandonment and injustice that traverses many of our cities, neighborhoods and the countryside.”
Among key issues for his term he cited security, “the control of immigration, jobs and the quality of life of the French people,” and defending of French interests in Europe. He said France would have to face “difficult truths” to address its finances, and he called for “a lot of respect,” including among “all the political forces that are represented.”
The announcement of a right-leaning prime minister drew rebukes from the left alliance, which complained about being snubbed by Macron when it should have been rewarded for preventing France’s first far-right government since World War II.
The New Popular Front said in a statement that it would seek to censure Barnier’s government. It accused Macron of “ignoring the message of the French people of a clear and massive rejection of the National Rally coming into power” and of increasing the “fractures and instability” in the country.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left leader of France Unbowed, posted on X that Macron “stole the election from the French people.”
But Barnier can count on backing by the centrist and conservative camps. He could then garner enough support in the splintered National Assembly if Marine Le Pen’s populist, anti-immigrant National Rally party does not move to censure him, analysts said.
“The next most important question is whether Le Pen will play ball,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group consultancy. “I suspect she will but will require some commitments.”
Le Pen suggested Thursday that she could get on board. The National Rally would closely watch for Barnier’s policy program, she posted on X, and wanted reassurances “that the aspirations of our voters, who represent a third of the French, are heard and respected.”
This is the first time Le Pen’s party held such sway in the choice of a French prime minister, said Rym Momtaz, editor in chief of Carnegie Europe’s Strategic Europe. “Macron’s snap election gamble has given the far-right, the party he had promised to diminish and weaken, its biggest parliamentary bloc ever, and a kingmaker role it could only dream of,” she said.
The new government’s purpose will be to pass a budget, and its chances for surviving beyond that remains in question, Momtaz said. “France is on track for one of its most politically unstable years in recent memory.”
Although presidential and legislative elections are separate in France, they typically happen in close succession, with political winds boosting the winning presidential candidate and lawmakers from the same party. That has enabled Macron and most presidents before him to secure support for prime ministers from their own coalitions.
This is a highly unusual case, with the elections out of sync. Macron’s term as president runs until May 2027, but he called early legislative elections after his coalition was trounced by the far-right in voting for the European Parliament. And after Macron’s party lost seats and placed second in the legislative elections, weakening his position in France and on the European stage, he needed to look further afield for a prime minister.
Barnier is a longtime member of France’s main conservative party, the Republicans. He shares some political beliefs with Macron, particularly about European ideals and about fiscal discipline in France, and both men have moved right on some immigration and security issues.
The two also now claim the Olympics as among the successes of their careers. Macron was a leading champion of the just-concluded Summer Olympics and still ongoing Paralympics in Paris. As a young lawmaker, Barnier led the successful quest to bring the 1992 Winter Olympics to his native Albertville in the southeast French region of Savoy.
“But they have also had deep disagreements and don’t come from the same political family,” Momtaz said.
When campaigning for president, Barnier objected to Macron’s brusque and top-down style. He called for greater decentralization of power and “more respect for parliament, the social partners, the regions and the municipalities.”
As prime minister, Barnier would be “a safe pair of hands in the sense that he’s known in Europe, known to market participants,” Rahman said. “But he hasn’t been particularly involved in domestic French politics for a very long time.”
At 73, Barnier is the oldest to take office as French prime minister, according to Le Monde. He follows outgoing prime minister Gabriel Attal, the youngest.
Macron on Thursday thanked Attal for “moving the country forward and contributing to its influence in an important time.”
Attal has been widely seen as Macron’s protégé — and a potential future presidential contender. At the handover ceremony on Thursday, he mounted a defense of his record while seeming to distance himself from Macron.
“Eight months is short. It’s too short,” he said. “I don’t hide it, there is evidently frustration in leaving my position.”
He said he was convinced that “in other circumstances,” his government would have managed to execute even more of its plans.
Turning to Barnier, he said, “Measures were to be presented this summer, they are on your desk, Mr. Prime Minister.”
