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Macron names ex-Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as new French PM

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday named the European Union's former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as new prime minister, following almost two months of political deadlock after snap polls, the presidency said.

Published: 5 September 2024 13:35 CEST
Macron names ex-Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as new French PM
Former EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in central London on January 29, 2023. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)

Barnier, 73, the oldest premier in the history of modern France, has been tasked with forming “a unifying government in the service of the country”, it said.

In a striking contrast, the former foreign minister succeeds Gabriel Attal, 35, a man less than half his age and who served only eight months in office.

The appointment of the veteran politician, a member of the right-wing Les Republicains (LR) party and not affiliated to Macron’s centrist faction, was greeted with dismay by the left which may seek to topple him with a no-confidence motion.

A left-wing coalition emerged as France’s biggest political force after the elections earlier this summer but with not enough seats for an overall majority.

Macron’s centrist faction and the far right make up the two other major groups in the National Assembly.

In France, the president names the prime minster, who can then be censured by parliament.

The Local’s French politics expert John Lichfield said: “Michel Barnier is the ultimate safe pair of hands, but he will need several pairs of hands and an agile brain – at 73 years old – to prevent one crisis from turning into another one.

“He walks into a serious financial crisis and a National Assembly two-thirds willing him to fail – even if it appears Marine Le Pen has agreed not to support a censure vote against him.” 

Conservative ex-minister Xavier Bertrand and former Socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve had been seen as the initial favourites to become premier, but both figures fell by the wayside with the mathematics of France’s new parliament stacked against them.

Marine Le Pen ‘decides’

Barnier has been all but invisible in French political life since failing to win his party’s nomination to challenge Macron for the presidency in 2022 during a campaign where he tacked further right and suggested a moratorium on immigration.

The former foreign minister and EU commissioner is “Macron-compatible” and would not be immediately voted out by parliament, an advisor to the president told AFP, asking not to be named.

A minister in the outgoing government, who also asked not to be named, said he was “very popular with right-wing members of parliament without being an irritant on the left”.

The RN of Le Pen indicated it would not automatically vote down Barnier and would wait and see what programme he lays out in his first address to parliament.

“We will wait to see Mr Barnier’s policy speech,” said Le Pen.

Macron’s predecessor Francois Hollande said he believed the RN had “given a kind of endorsement” to Barnier’s appointment.

As well as two stints as an EU commissioner and handling the thorny negotiations on Britain’s exit from the bloc, Barnier served as a minister under the right-wing administrations of presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed his nomination, saying she knew Barnier had “the interests of Europe and France at heart”.

With a half century career behind him, Barnier who proudly extols his origins in the French Alps rather than Paris, first become a member of parliament aged just 27.

Opponents noted that as a youthful conservative lawmaker, he voted against the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1981.

The composition of the new cabinet — set to be announced in the coming days — will be closely watched for signs of concessions to Macron’s political foes.

‘Tough’ task 

Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose La France Insoumise (LFI) and allies belong to a left-wing bloc, said Macron naming Barnier meant the election had been “stolen from the French”.

Macron’s decision comes under the gun of a deadline to submit a draft 2025 budget for France’s strained government finances before October 1st.

It also marks his attempt to acknowledge rejection of his seven-year rule without giving up on hard-fought reforms, chief among them last year’s widely resented increase to the official retirement age to 64 from 62.

Barnier’s “task looks tough, but difficulty has never scared him,” said former prime minister Edouard Philippe who earlier this week announced he would seek to succeed Macron in 2027 presidential elections.

After the July election deprived Macron of his relative majority in parliament, the centrist president drew out the appointment of a new prime minister for a period unprecedented since World War II, through the July-August Olympic Games and beyond.

Attal, who commentators believe harbours further political ambitions, bowed out by releasing a slick video of his time in office on his social media channels.

“The bond we have is the most precious thing I have. Count on me to keep on threading it,” he said.

Member comments

  1. Lichfield strikes again: “Michel Barnier is the ultimate safe pair of hands”, well if you are LGBT this ‘safe pair of hands’ is a known homophobe with views on migration that are positively medieval.

  3. French politics is so delightfully bonkers, isn’t it.
    Those taking part on the political stage all, diligently, play their parts whilst, simultaneously, trying to herd cats – or the French people, as they are collectively known – who in no way want to be governed, by anyone…..
    Vive la France.

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PARIS

Paris and Milan: Closest in the world to becoming ’15-minute cities’

Paris and Milan are among the cities closest to reaching the urban planning goal of being a "15-minute city," while car-dependent metropolises in the United States and elsewhere lag behind, a worldwide analysis said on Monday.

Published: 16 September 2024 17:29 CEST
Paris and Milan: Closest in the world to becoming '15-minute cities'

In fact, the central areas of many cities already meet the definition of a 15 minute-city, which means that residents are within a quarter-hour walk or bike ride from everything they need to a lead a good life, the analysis found.

But even within a city, there are often stark differences between the wealthy inner cities and the urban sprawl on their outskirts, according to the Italian researchers behind the new study.

The concept of the 15-minute city gained traction during the Covid pandemic, when lockdowns put more focus on local neighbourhoods.

It has since been embraced by dozens of mayors around the world — and become the target of conspiracy theorists online.

For the new study, published in the journal Nature Cities, the researchers built an online database looking at roughly 10,000 cities globally.

They used open source data to map out how far of a walk or cycle residents were from different services, including shops, restaurants, education, exercise and healthcare.

“A lot of people already live in a 15-minute city,” study co-author Hygor Piaget Monteiro Melo told AFP.

But it depends on where you look within a city, he said, because of the inequality in access to services between the centre and periphery.

No ‘utopia’

What is clear, the researchers noted, is that population density is a crucial factor — if enough people are living close enough to each other, it is much easier for them to have easy access to services.

This meant that somewhat smaller yet relatively dense cities such as Italy’s Milan or Spain’s Barcelona scored well on their map, which was made available online.

When it came to the biggest cities, “Paris is an outlier,” lead study author Matteo Bruno told AFP.

The mayor of Paris embraced the concept in 2020, and a “considerable fraction” of the city is below the 15-minute mark, the study said.

Some European cities have a head start because they were built centuries ago at a time before cars — when basically all towns had to be 15-minute cities, the researchers said.

Cities built more recently with cars specifically in mind — particularly in the United States — fared far less well on the map.

Atlanta in particular stood out as being a long way from being a 15-minute city. Future Olympic host Los Angeles also lagged behind most others for walkability, as did several Chinese cities including Chongqing.

But when it comes to cities, there are always trade-offs — and there is no single right answer, the researchers said.

“The 15-minute city is often presented as a utopia — it’s not,” Bruno said.

Americans in sprawled-out cities usually have their own houses and backyards, while Europeans in densely populated cities tend to live in apartments, illustrating the important role played by culture, Bruno said.

And central parts of US cities such as New York, San Francisco and Milwaukee were under the 15-minute threshold.

“Manhattan is definitely one of the most 15-minute places ever in the world,” said Bruno, a researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Rome.

‘Conspiracy mongers’

There has been confusion about the concept in the past, the researchers lamented.

For example, “traffic has nothing to do with the 15-minute city,” Bruno said.

In fact, slow traffic could indicate an area is more pedestrian friendly, he added.

Yet it was new “low-traffic zones” in the UK that turned the ire of conspiracy theorists towards 15-minute city proponents.

Confusing the two ideas, online groups including vaccine and climate sceptics falsely claimed that 15-minute cities were part of a secret plot to restrict the movement of citizens.

The Italian researchers, who have themselves been targeted by “Twitter haters,” emphasised that nothing about the 15-minute city concept involves confining anyone.

Researcher Carlos Moreno, a high-profile proponent of 15-minute cities who has advised Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, was also “attacked by the worldwide conspiracy mongers,” he told AFP.

Moreno welcomed the new study, praising how the idea had swiftly become a topic of interest for researchers around the world.

Just last week, Valerie Pecresse, the right-wing head of the greater Paris Ile-de-France area, presented a plan for a 20-minute region, he pointed out.

Bruno said that the 15-minute metric is just one element in the “recipe” that makes a good city.

Other parts of the recipe include tackling inequality and segregation, improving public transport, reducing traffic and so on, he said.

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