Barnier as PM 'brings one political crisis to an end and starts another one'
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00:00Nearly two months after snap parliamentary polls, the wait for a new prime minister here in France is finally over.
00:07Emmanuel Macron selecting the Conservative Party's Michel Barnier.
00:10The nomination has the far left of the political spectrum here in France up in arms.
00:15France unbowed, calling for mass protests this weekend.
00:19They are arguing that the recent parliamentary polls in June and July have been stolen.
00:26For more on this story, we can bring in Paul Smith, associate professor and head of French
00:30and Francophone studies at Nottingham University. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for joining us
00:35here on France 24. Your reaction to Michel Barnier's nomination?
00:41Well, it was a bit of a shock nomination. I mean, his name was only really doing the
00:44rounds last night. Earlier this week, we were talking about various different candidates,
00:49Bernard Kasner and Xavier Bertrand, and then suddenly somebody threw out Michel Barnier.
00:55A surprise, yes. But one of the things that has really been an obstacle to the negotiations has
01:02been the threat of a motion of no confidence, a censure motion, as they call it in France.
01:07And the one person who was threatening that was Marine Le Pen. And it seems that she is less
01:12likely to automatically censor this appointment. So it's a rather concerning development, but
01:19a surprise. But a very well-known figure, certainly on this side of the channel,
01:23perhaps less well-known outside of political circles in France.
01:28That's true. He was the chief Brexit negotiator. So it's no wonder that a lot of people in Great
01:33Britain would know him. But let's talk about this whole decision-making process of Emmanuel Macron,
01:39because when he dissolved Parliament, he didn't need to dissolve Parliament,
01:43but he dissolved Parliament in the wake of those European elections, because he said,
01:48based on the results of the European elections, he wanted a government that's more reflective
01:51of French society and the mood at the time. Then we had a month later, of course, we had the
01:58parliamentary elections take place. We know how things turned out on that front. Now he goes and
02:04picks a candidate to be a prime minister from the party that did the worst. How is he going to sell
02:09this to the French public? Well, that's a very good question. I mean, what he's trying to do,
02:14of course, or what he's been trying to do, has been trying to do, is to find a coalition.
02:18But he's refused himself, Macron. This is where he's kind of crossing a constitutional line,
02:24according to the left. What he's trying to do is build a coalition, as you say,
02:29with his own party, the Centre Ensemble Renaissance, his various supporters, plus
02:36by bringing in Barnier, plus bringing in the Les RĂ©publicains, who did not so well in the elections,
02:42although better than they might have done. In some ways, they've held up quite well.
02:48Barnier looks like someone who might bring in their leader, Laurent Wauquiez, bring them into
02:52support. But you're absolutely right. I mean, there's been a lot of criticism already of the
02:57appointment of Barnier, that it brings one political crisis to an end and simply starts another one.
03:02So we're by no means, this story is by no means done and dusted.
03:07It's not done and dusted, for sure, because we have, of course, other reactions that will come in
03:13in the hours to come. But we have the reaction from the far left of the political spectrum,
03:17unsurprising reaction from Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon. How do you think this is going to play out when
03:22it comes to the socialists, for instance, and the likes of François Hollande, the former socialist
03:27president? Well, certainly the leaders of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, has already been
03:33very forthright in his response. And also the leader of the Greens, Marine Dandelier, her tweet
03:39today was one of consternation, you know, sort of Michel Barnier, good lord, you know, that's the
03:45response. So there's this building up. But this is not an appointment that is going to convince
03:52the centre left if we want to put the socialists and the Greens on the centre left of the left.
03:58Certainly it's not going to be one that appeals to them. They might not go as far as MĂ©lenchon
04:03calling for mass demonstrations, but they might well do to, but certainly perhaps not the language
04:08of the stolen election, because that's quite dangerous rhetoric. But certainly you can
04:12understand that they would want to make their feelings very clearly felt and call on the public
04:17to do that as well, to follow that at the weekend. But if Emmanuel Macron wanted a technocrat
04:25kind of figure to lead the government, he could have just gone and picked a technocrat. Yet he
04:29went and picked somebody from the Conservative Party. So he's clearly picked a side to align
04:36with. And that's that of the right. Yes, absolutely. I mean, he threw out the name. There was a name
04:40doing the rounds on Monday evening, Baudet, the chair, the president of the Economic Council,
04:48and the response to that, because this has really been, you know, a sort of politics by response.
04:53And when Thierry Baudet's name was suggested, there was this big sort of rejection of that.
04:59And on Tuesday and Wednesday, very much the feeling from party leaders is this is a political problem
05:05and it needs a political appointment. So that's what we've got. And we've seen over the last
05:10couple of days, particularly to go back to what I was saying earlier, that Le Pen, and this is why
05:15this is a quite concerning moment, Le Pen and the Hassan Rouhani National have kind of weighed
05:20in on the debate to say there are certain figures we would censor automatically. Xavier Bertrand.
05:27But there might be another figure, and here we have Barnier, where they've already said that
05:31they will wait and see what he says when he outlines his general program, whether they would
05:38table a motion of no confidence and whether he would fall at the first hurdle.
05:42So this is a political solution, not a technocratic solution to a political problem,
05:48but it could well all go, you know, all completely fall apart within a week.
05:55That is also true, because the drama is not over just yet. I want to ask you something about
06:01looking at how Emmanuel Macron has done things since he's gotten onto the political scene here
06:05in France. Of course, he was neither left nor right when he burst onto the scene. He decimated
06:12the traditional left and the traditional right. But during his presidency, it seems he has
06:18strengthened the far right so much so that they are weighing in on who should be the prime minister
06:24of this country. Yes, absolutely. I mean, there's been a process of, the French would use the word
06:31this sort of drift towards the right that we saw with Macron. Initially, yes, you're quite right
06:36that he kind of bridged or attempted to bridge the two centers. And then by 2022, he was quite
06:43clearly shifting to the right. But of course, part of his project, having destroyed the left in 2017,
06:48was to destroy the traditional right and to really squeeze them. We saw that after the 2022
06:54presidential and National Assembly elections, that instead of softening his tone and opening
07:00up to Les RĂ©publicains, he took a much harder line, although recruiting quite heavily from
07:06their ranks. And Barnier is another one, of course, from Les RĂ©publicains. So he's been
07:11quite destructive in that regard of not just the left, but also the right. But of course,
07:16also playing to a lot of the, and Barnier does as well, when he was a candidate for the presidential
07:21nomination in 2022 amongst Les RĂ©publicains, he also, he's very big on, he made immigration one
07:28of his key planks. And that kind of playing to the rhetoric of the far right has been one of
07:34the features of both Macron, and I suspect we're going to see this, the Barnier government as well.
07:39And it may well be why Le Pen is willing to hold her fire on Barnier's appointment.