Michel Barnier, France’s new conservative prime minister, has yet to appoint a government, still less lay out its agenda. But three-quarters of voters already believe that he will soon be on his way out, despite Emmanuel Macron’s hope that the former EU Brexit negotiator can safeguard his legacy after multiple misjudgments.
Mr 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 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, centre and far right – in a country without a recent history of coalition building.
Mr Macron worsened matters by rejecting Lucie Castets, the prime ministerial candidate of the leftwing New Popular Front alliance, which startled everyone by coming first in July. The left’s bickering and unwillingness to compromise hasn’t helped itself. It was also true that such a government had a minimal chance of survival. But the president should have allowed matters to take their course. Instead, he picked a prime minister whose fourth-placed Les Républicains party holds only 47 of 577 seats and which did not sacrifice candidates to see off Ms Le Pen’s National Rally, as the left and centre did.
Mr 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. Mr 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 Mr Barnier has been regarded as on the centre-right, he voted against the decriminalisation 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 remarked that “There still is a feeling that our borders are sieves”. Ms Le Pen gloats that he shares her party’s views on immigration. Mr 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 Ms Le Pen needs him to fail.
Mr Barnier’s first, immense challenge will be to draw up a budget next month and push it through. His experience and political skills may help his government win some leeway from Brussels over its spending plans, reassuring the EU that France is slashing its debt. But it will be harder to make the politics and economics add up at home.
If the public is proved right about Mr Barnier’s political lifespan, Mr Macron will soon need to find a replacement. But 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 manoeuvring is increasing disenchantment with the democratic process. July’s second-round result, which brought such relief, is now being squandered.
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