What next for France after Macron taps old hand Barnier?

Emmanuel Macron kept everyone guessing until the very last minute of his long hunt for a prime minister. With the National Assembly irreconcilably divided into three camps after snap legislative elections in July, the French president courted candidates from the center, left and right, discarding name after name as not viable.

And then, almost 60 days after a poll that delivered an inconclusive victory for the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, Macron announced on Thursday a selection that few would have predicted: conservative old hand Michel Barnier.

A former European commissioner and the head EU negotiator with post-Brexit Britain, Barnier hails from the traditional center-right Republican party. The 73-year-old is perhaps better known outside of France than in his home country, where his most recent power play was a failed presidential bid in 2022 marked by overtures to the hard right on immigration.

French Left incensed, calls for protest

Those in the New Popular Front, which rapidly bundled together disparate forces from the radical and center left, including Greens and Communists, in a bid to stave off a victory for Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally, was up in arms.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of hard-left France Unbowed, decried Barnier as the "usurper of Matignon", referring to the official residence of the French prime minister.

Manuel Bompard, France Unbowed's coordinator, also slammed the choice on Friday. "If you finish last, you don't get the gold medal. Emmanuel Macron has decided to name a prime minister whose party got 6% in the most recent elections," he told BFM TV.

The New Popular Front, which won the most seats with 193 but still fell well short of an outright majority, had hammered home for months that it was the only legitimate selection pool for the premiership.

In the end, the group's calls to reverse deeply unpopular pension reforms that Macron sees as a vital necessity may have been too much for the French president to stomach. France Unbowed has called for huge nationwide protests on Saturday.

Power in Le Pen's hands

As Macron's critics have been quick to point out, support for any cabinet led by Barnier hinges not only on the backing of Macron's centrist grouping but also on the anti-immigration, Euroskeptic National Rally, which finished third in the July polls.

Speaking to broadcaster France Info on Friday, Socialist leader Olivier Faure said members of his PS party, which is also part of the NPF, would not join a Barnier government.

"When Michel Barnier says that he is going to govern 'with everyone', who is he addressing? The left? No, the far right, whose survival he understands very clearly that he depends on," he said.

National Rally leading light Marine Le Pen has signaled tacit acceptance of Barnier's appointment for now, saying on Thursday she would wait to see the content of his political program. However, her party would not join a Barnier cabinet, she said.

As Eurasia Consultancy Group analyst Mujtaba Rahman commented on Friday, "the key to Barnier's hopes of success — or in the short term, survival — will be, bizarrely, Le Pen." Macron appears to be counting on Le Pen not immediately choosing to topple the government by supporting on a censure motion together with NPF, said Rahman.

"But Le Pen's position could change," Rahman wrote on X. "Given the implacable opposition to the new government of the Left, she has the power to bring down Barnier whenever she chooses." The question is what concessions they might extract.

Tough few weeks ahead for Barnier

On Friday, his first day in the job he took over from 35-year-old Gabriel Attal, Barnier pledged to deal with the issues sowing intense division and resentment in France.

"It will be about responding as much as we can to the challenges, anger... to the suffering, to the feeling of abandonment, the injustice that runs, far too much, through our cities, our neighbourhoods and our countryside," Barnier said in Paris.

Barnier has his work cut out for him. While under France's presidential system Macron will remain the most powerful politician in the country with his term set to expire in 2027, Barnier's first task is to form a new government capable of getting its policies through parliament. While leaders of many major parties insisted they would not accept ministerial posts, this resolve could crumble in the face of temptation.

On Friday, Barnier began talks with leaders from different parties. He is now expected to prepare a policy program to present to the 577 lawmakers of the National Assembly in the days to come. He can then ask them for a vote of confidence, though he does not have to. If he stays in his position, Barnier must also rush to draw up a 2025 budget, with France's public finances in poor state.

Did Macron's gamble pay off?

The French president called the snap legislative vote back in June after his own Renaissance party took a drubbing in the EU elections. It was a bid to consolidate his support at home and face down the ascendant power of National Rally, which scored a stunning victory in the European Parliament poll.

To a certain extent, his risky move worked. National Rally emerged as the largest single party in France in July, but ultimately came in third after Macron's own group and the left-wing NPF.

But according to Sophie Pornschlegel of the Europe Jacques Delors Institute think tank in Brussels, Macron's grand plan can only be described as a "50/50" success at best. "It didn't pan out as he wanted it to," she told DW. "He's avoided the worst, but I'm not sure he's in a better position than before."

In the best case, Barnier — who has a reputation as a pragmatic politician capable of compromise — could act as a kind of technocrat, delivering a budget capable of getting the approval of the French National Assembly, she said.

But by disregarding the result of the election, Macron had sowed even more anger, Pornschlegel argued, and may have prepared the ground for the far right to win power in the 2027 presidential election. "One should not underestimate the discontent of the French people," she warned.

Edited by: Andreas Illmer

Correction, September 7, 2024: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of analyst Mujtaba Rahman. DW apologizes for the error.