Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier appointed next French PM

Confirmation breaks long deadlock, but questions remain over whether former EU talks chief would survive confidence vote

Michel Barnier, the European Union’s former Brexit negotiator, was appointed as France’s prime minister on Thursday, breaking a post-election deadlock.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, asked Mr Barnier to “form a unifying government in the service of the country and the French people”, according to a statement by the Elysée Palace.
Mr Barnier, 73, is a veteran member of France’s main conservative party, the Republicans, and has previously campaigned for hard-line migration reforms.
His appointment raised the prospect that a backroom deal had been brokered between Mr Macron and Marine Le Pen’s hard-Right National Rally (RN) party. Mr Barnier would need the support of RN MPs in parliament to hold on to power.
Ms Le Pen said Mr Barnier “seems to meet at least the first criteria we had called for, that is to say a man who is respectful of the different political forces and able to address the National Rally, which is the first group of the National Assembly, in the same way as other groups”.
Mr Macron had struggled to break the political deadlock triggered by his decision to call a snap election, which ended in a hung parliament with a Leftist coalition as the largest party.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a senior figure from the New Popular Front grouping, which won 182 seats, said Mr Barnier’s appointment meant the vote had been stolen from the Left.
“It is not the New Popular Front, which came at the top of the [legislative] election, which will have the prime minister and the responsibility of running before the MPs,” he said. “The election was therefore stolen.”
Mr Macron was under significant pressure to nominate a prime minister two months on from the second round of the legislative elections. His decision was taken before a looming deadline for the start of discussions over the 2025 budget in parliament next month.
The appointment of Mr Barnier will come as a shock in France, where he is not a big name despite his previous role as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator. He becomes the oldest prime minister of France’s Fifth Republic and succeeds Gabriel Attal, who was appointed only eight months ago as the youngest.
In his last foray into domestic politics, Mr Barnier failed to secure the Republicans’ nomination for the country’s 2022 presidential election.
The party’s candidate, Valérie Pécresse, was eliminated in the first round, with less than five per cent of the vote, in a contest that saw Mr Macron re-elected after beating Ms Le Pen.
In the campaign, Mr Barnier proposed a three-to-five-year prohibition on non-EU immigration. He further raised eyebrows in Brussels, where he is best known, by calling on France to regain its “legal sovereignty” by ignoring judgments from the EU’s Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights.
In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Mr Barnier accused Mr Macron of ignoring French voters’ concerns over immigration, sovereignty and security.
“I regret that in my country that this warning has not been listened to… about migration, about security, about authority of the state, and the respect and development of the poorest parts of the country,” he said.
Mr Barnier now faces the challenge of forming a government that will secure the backing of France’s parliament.
The New Popular Front is well short of the 289 seats required to trigger a vote of no-confidence, but Mr Barnier will still need the support of the hard-Right to govern with relative stability.
This means he is likely to become hostage to Ms Le Pen’s National Rally, leaving France with a Right-wing government even after its electorate voted to keep the hard-Right out of power.