The first major task for Barnier, appointed just over two weeks ago, will be to submit a 2025 budget plan addressing France’s financial situation, which the prime minister this week called “very serious”.
Conservative Barnier is best-known internationally for leading the European Union’s Brexit negotiations with the UK.
More recently, he has had the difficult job of submitting a cabinet for Macron’s approval that has the best chance of surviving a no-confidence motion in parliament.
Opposition politicians from the left have already announced they will challenge his government with a confidence motion.
In the July election, a left-wing bloc called the New Popular Front (NFP) won the most parliamentary seats of any political bloc, but not enough to get an overall majority.
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Macron argued that the left would be unable to muster enough support to form a government that would not immediately be brought down in parliament.
He turned instead to Barnier to lead a government drawing mostly on parliamentary support from Macron’s allies, from the conservative Republicans (LR) and the centrists groups, while counting on a neutral stance from the far right.
Among the new faces in key cabinet posts are Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, a centrist, and conservative Bruno Retailleau at the interior ministry, whose portfolio covers immigration.
Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, a close Macron ally, has kept his job.
The difficult job of submitting a budget plan to parliament next month falls to 33-year-old Antoine Armand, the new finance minister. He has previously served as head of parliament’s economic affairs commission.
Even before the announcement, thousands of people with left-leaning sympathies took to the streets in Paris and the southern port city of Marseille on Saturday to protest.
They were object to a cabinet they say does not reflect the outcome of the parliamentary election.
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