PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron has named moderate, veteran politician Michel Barnier as the country’s prime minister, hoping the man who negotiated Brexit for the European Union will work to heal divisions within France.
Barnier’s 50-year political career has included stints as foreign minister and EU commissioner. At 73, he is the oldest premier in modern France’s history.
His appointment comes two months after snap elections left France politically divided and without a single party with a legislative majority, known as a hung parliament.
“[The president] has tasked him with forming a unifying government to serve the country and the French people,” Macron’s office said in a statement.
But political opposition leaders seem anything but unified over the choice of a man many of them regard as an out-of-touch, mainstream conservative.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen called him a “fossil.” And far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon accused Macron of not accepting the will of French voters by failing to appoint a prime minister from the left.
A coalition of leftist parties won the most parliamentary seats in the July 7 legislative election. But no party has an outright majority in the 577-seat National Assembly. France’s lower house is split into three main blocs: the left, including Mélenchon’s party, the center that backs Macron and the far right, which converges around Le Pen’s anti-immigration party.
“He has stolen the election from the French people,” said Mélenchon.
Political analyst Dominique Moïsi says many think Macron should have followed the will of the people by naming a prime minister from the leftist coalition, but many commentators suggest the coalition is partly to blame for putting forward a candidate, Lucie Castets, who could not garner wide support.
“She would have been rejected by the majority at the National Assembly,” he says.
The French president has also been criticized for taking too long to name the new premier. The previous prime minister, Gabriel Attal, resigned on July 16 but has stayed on for more than 50 days in a caretaker government.
Barnier was not Macron’s first choice, but Moïsi believes he is the first candidate with a chance at building a majority coalition.
“Barnier is a compromise candidate,” says Moïsi. “He is a very seasoned, moderate, pro-European personality who supports NATO and Ukraine. He is a personality that is acceptable to the center and the right and will not be censured immediately by the extreme right,” he says.
Moïsi says Barnier’s pro-Europe stances are also shared by moderate Socialists Party members, who could also support him in the end. “We will see,” he says.
Moïsi says Macron was also looking for someone he could control — and may have found that figure in mild-mannered Barnier.
Parisian voter Pierrette Piedcoq says she doesn’t know much about Barnier, but she’s glad there’s at least a prime minister now.
"He waited more than 50 days to name one, we’ve never gone that long without a government,” says the septuagenarian, who says she loves politics.
But she says Barnier doesn’t really solve the main problem in French politics. “The problem is people are just sick of Macron,” she says. “They don’t want him anymore. Barnier is just going to continue Macron’s politics. He purposefully chose someone who would not overshadow him.”
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