Two months after France’s snap parliamentary elections, President Emmanuel Macron has finally named Michel Barnier as Prime Minister.

After 60 days of political deadlock in France, Barnier, 73, who served as the European Union’s Brexit negotiator, becomes the oldest Prime Minister in the history of modern France, succeeding Gabriel Attal, who – at 35 – had been the youngest.

The veteran right-wing politician has held a collection of top jobs as minister, European Union commissioner and negotiator on Brexit during a half-century political career that has seen him tack further to the right in recent years – and his longevity earned him the ‘French Joe Biden’ epithet.

Macron has asked his new Prime Minister to, “form a unifying government in the service of the country”.

The president “made sure” to choose Barnier as he meets the conditions for providing stable governance and would receive the broadest support.

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

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”.

In 2022, Barnier set his sights on the Elysée in the presidential elections, but missed out on the nomination for Les Republicains – and has been largely absent from most of the French political discourse ever since.

But his political views from two years ago are likely to guide his political direction now.

Barnier’s positions in 2022

As a candidate, he vowed to “be the president of a France that is reconciled, to respect the French people and have France respected”.

But he surprised some in the European Union by setting his stall out to the right of the political spectrum, calling for an ‘electric shock’ on security, a moratorium on immigration and for France to free itself from European court oversight, to the dismay of former colleagues in Brussels.

Barnier said he would organise a referendum if elected, asking voters to approve constitutional changes and the ability of parliament to set immigrant quotas each year.

He also proposed bringing back military service in a bid to woo conservative voters. France’s last conscripts were demobilised in 2001 after former president Jacques Chirac ended nearly a century of military service.

He declared, at the time, that he did not “really like the concept of European sovereignty”, and took aim at what he called “German dominance” the European Union. “I know what I’m talking about,” he said.

Barnier’s backstory

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.

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.

He has had notably conservative positions on social issues.

In 1981 he voted against equalising the age of consent for gay men – attempting to block the repeal of a Vichy-era law that criminalised – via fine or jail time – consenting sexual relations between men aged 21 or under.

He also voted against the recognition of PACS (civil marriage), which was first proposed in 1990 and was intended to offer a similar regime to marriage for same-sex couples.

On the topic of abortion, which had already been decriminalised in 1975 but remained subject to fees, Barnier voted against allowing for the procedure to be reimbursed by the social security system. 

He also opposed the loi Gayssot, which passed in 1990 and created a punishment for racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic acts. The law also made it an offence to downplay or deny the existence of crimes against humanity, such as the Holocaust.

Barnier also voted against the Loi Evin, which banned smoking in public places and placed restrictions on advertising tobacco and alcohol. 

Outside of France, Barnier is perhaps best known outside the EU for taking on the job of negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union on behalf of the bloc in 2016.

His handling of the negotiations won widespread respect. He later wrote about his experience in his book My Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion. 

Although the title made his position on the UK’s decision to walk away from the EU perfectly clear, he steered clear of salacious gossip.

“There is most definitely something wrong with the British system… every passing day shows that they have not realised the consequences of what is truly at stake,” he wrote.

How is he perceived?

Barnier’s first challenge after moving into Matignon will be facing down a likely no-confidence motion in parliament. Hard-left politicians have already claimed the appointment means that July’s election was ‘stolen’, after the left-wing NFP group’s preferred candidate was ignored – despite their success in the elections.

Even within his own political party, Barnier’s appointment to the Prime Ministerial hotseat has not been met with universal approval. One LR MP told AFP that he epitomised “everything the French don’t want”.

Macron appears to be counting on the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) of three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen not to block the appointment of Barnier. 

So far, Le Pen has said that support for the new Prime Minister would “depend on his programme”.