Michel Barnier’s burden

Found: a new prime minister. Wanted: a new government. President Emmanuel Macron’s appointment of Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister on September 5th, after a two-month search that followed inconclusive parliamentary elections in July, ended one painful political quest. A veteran conservative from the Republicans party and the European Union’s former Brexit negotiator, Mr Barnier is a pro-European Gaullist with old-school manners and a reputation for consensus-seeking. His selection has reassured investors; 52% of the French approve. But he now has his work cut out trying to forge a government with any chance of survival.

Mr Barnier spent his first week on a recruitment drive, revealing little. The Republicans hold a mere 47 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly. He still depends on Mr Macron’s centrists, who form the second-biggest bloc, with 166. Indeed many of them come from the centre-right. They include Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister, who is taking a break from politics, Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, and Edouard Philippe, a former prime minister, who recently announced that he will run for the presidency in 2027.

Yet Mr Macron’s party, Renaissance, as a whole insists that its support should not be taken for granted. Gabriel Attal, the 35-year-old former prime minister who handed over to the 73-year-old Mr Barnier, is now the centrists’ parliamentary leader. He told his deputies last week that their attitude should be “neither an intention to obstruct nor unconditional support”. Those on the centre-left of Renaissance are particularly sceptical. Roland Lescure, the outgoing industry minister and incoming deputy speaker of parliament, cautioned Mr Barnier against leaning too far to the right, notably on immigration. “He can’t assume that we will be a walkover,” he says.

Short of a formal coalition agreement, which is unlikely to be forthcoming, Mr Barnier will need to tread a delicate line between some continuity with the Macron project, to secure centrist backing, and a show of independence, to make clear that he is not the president’s lackey. Until now, Mr Macron has kept a tight grip on all government policy. Now, say aides, this will end. “We’re changing era,” insists someone close to the president, arguing that the prime minister will be “free and independent” to devise policy: “The president will preside, the government will govern.”

Even with the centrists, Mr Barnier will be running a minority government. It will be vulnerable at any moment to a motion of no-confidence that could be tabled by the opposition. This is where the equation gets really tricky. Mr Barnier was not Mr Macron’s first pick; he got the job because he has fewer political enemies than the president’s two preferred choices, Xavier Bertrand, the centre-right president of the Hauts-de-France region, and Bernard Cazeneuve, an ex-Socialist prime minister estranged from his former party.

Yet Mr Barnier will get no help from the left. The four-party left-wing alliance, dominated by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s hard-left Unsubmissive France, is fuming. It holds the biggest parliamentary bloc, with 193 seats, and claims that Mr Macron has “stolen” the election. The alliance will vote against Mr Barnier at the first chance.

That means that, awkwardly, the survival of Mr Barnier’s future government is now largely in the hands of none other than Marine Le Pen. Her hard-right friends form the third-biggest parliamentary bloc, with 142 seats, and her promise not to vote immediately against Mr Barnier helped him to clinch the job. Now she, in effect, has her finger on the ejector-seat button. Among her demands is the introduction of proportional representation for the legislative vote, which would benefit her own party. She could press that button at any time.

An Alpine skier and mountaineer from the Savoy region, Mr Barnier is on a tightrope. He is due to get a budget to parliament by October 1st. Mr Le Maire says the budget deficit could reach 5.6% of GDP this year, well above the 5.1% forecast, not to mention the EU’s limit of 3%. The European Commission is monitoring the country closely. France, says Mr Le Maire, needs a further €16bn ($17.6bn) of savings this year. Nobody will thank Mr Barnier for enacting budget cuts in his first weeks in office. Yet he may have little choice. Indeed, such a thankless task is reason to think that, for once, Mr Macron may actually be ready to take a step back and leave the new government to take the flak. ■

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