Macron names PM, "lurches towards right" with "twin focus" on reducing budget, "courting far-right"
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00:00So, after two months of deadlock, President Macron has named the new French Prime Minister.
00:09It is to be Michel Barnier, the EU's Brexit negotiator and the former European Commissioner.
00:14He hails from the right of French politics, a veteran of the party Les RĂ©publicains.
00:20Indeed, the immediate challenge now for Barnier is to garner enough support from Parliament,
00:26from the right and from the left, to form a stable government.
00:30The elections back in June and July delivered a hung Parliament, with a left-wing bloc winning
00:37the most seats, but far from enough for a majority.
00:42Well minutes after that news dropped today, reaction to Barnier's appointment began to
00:48pour in.
00:49The far-right National Rally, which has become a de facto kingmaker in the hunt for Prime
00:54Minister, did not dismiss Barnier out of hand.
00:58Let's show you here something on X from Jordan Bardella.
01:03He said that the 11 million voters of the National Rally deserve our respect and we
01:11will judge Barnier's general policy speech, his budgetary decisions and his actions.
01:17Bardella then weighing up whether or not to throw the weight of the party behind Barnier.
01:25Now meanwhile, the influential far-left leader of the France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon,
01:31has strongly criticised the appointment of Barnier.
01:34He's argued the election has been stolen from French voters.
01:43The election has thus been stolen from the French people.
01:46The message has been denied.
01:47And now we see a Prime Minister appointed with the permission and perhaps even on the
01:51suggestion of the National Rally.
01:54Even though the second round of the parliamentary elections was wholly focused on ensuring the
01:58National Rally should not succeed.
02:07Let's cross live now to the Elysee Palace.
02:10That's the seat of President Macron.
02:12Our reporter Claire Packiller is there for us.
02:15So Claire, it has been weeks of deadlock.
02:18We do now finally have white smoke.
02:21We have the name of Michel Barnier.
02:23Tell us why you think the President has gone for him.
02:27Well, to some extent, at least, Michel Barnier is seen as being Macron compatible.
02:35He's a right-wing politician from the Les RĂ©publicains party.
02:39He's not an extreme.
02:40He's not on the far right.
02:42And it's seen unlikely that he would try to totally unpick seven years' worth of reforms
02:48and policies that Emmanuel Macron has put in place since he became President.
02:52Crucially, as well, it was seen that Michel Barnier was the most likely, although it's
02:57not a guarantee, the most likely to get the support of Parliament.
03:02Because that really is the question.
03:03He needs the support of Parliament because if he doesn't get it, then members of Parliament
03:07can simply vote to overthrow him in a vote of no confidence.
03:12The question is, though, who exactly in Parliament will support Michel Barnier?
03:17He'll have Les RĂ©publicains, the right party.
03:19He'll have centrists from Emmanuel Macron's party, although they've already made a statement.
03:24The Renaissance party has made a statement saying they won't be writing Michel Barnier
03:28a blank cheque.
03:29But, of course, to some extent, he's going to have to rely on the far right party of
03:34Marine Le Pen.
03:36And if Michel Barnier finds himself relying on that party, well, is that really a desirable
03:42situation for him?
03:43Because while Marine Le Pen's party could give support initially, that support could
03:48be taken away quickly at any point throughout his tenure as Prime Minister.
03:53And it is worth, Claire, dwelling a little bit or analysing a little bit the reaction
03:58from the left today.
04:00As I said at the beginning of the programme, it was that left-wing bloc, the New Popular
04:05Front, that won the most seats in Parliament after the elections in July.
04:11But we do not have a politician from the left for Prime Minister.
04:15As you say, he's a figure who's more likely to work with the National Rally.
04:20And Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon already saying, look, he feels the election has been stolen.
04:25Certainly, and Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon is an influential voice.
04:30It's worth noting that that left-wing bloc, the New Popular Front, that was cobbled together
04:35hastily just after Emmanuel Macron announced that he was holding snap parliamentary elections
04:41before the summer.
04:42That New Popular Front spans a pretty wide part of the political spectrum, from the far
04:48left, Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon, all the way up the Greens, the Communists, the Socialists
04:52as well.
04:53So it remains to be seen.
04:55Michel Barnier may at times find himself trying to reach out to the more centrist socialist
05:00politicians if he can't get the support from the far right on certain policies.
05:04But certainly, Michel Barnier is going to try to build bridges, build coalitions, make
05:09friends wherever he can.
05:11He is known as being a tough negotiator.
05:14He drove a hard bargain.
05:15That's certainly how he's seen in the UK, drove a hard bargain in those Brexit negotiations
05:20when he was the chief negotiator for the European Union.
05:24But can he drive that kind of a hard bargain?
05:27Can he get the support of France's very divided parliament?
05:30Well that's what we'll be looking up now in the next few weeks and months to come.
05:34Claire Paquelin live for us outside the Elysee Palace for the moment.
05:39Thank you very much indeed.
05:41Well let's get you plenty of analysis then on that appointment of Michel Barnier.
05:46We're going to be talking about this story throughout the afternoon with me here in the
05:50studios, our French politics editor, Mark Perelman.
05:53Also joining us live on the line is Andrew Smith.
05:56He's an expert in French politics and in history as well at Queen Mary University.
06:00I'll come to you in a moment, Mr. Smith, but first I'd like to bring in Mark Perelman.
06:05Mark Barnier and Macron, is it fair to say they have a close relationship?
06:11What can you tell us about how they might work together?
06:14They don't have a close relationship, but they've worked together before when Michel
06:22Barnier was negotiating Brexit.
06:25It was during the presidency of François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron, as we may remember,
06:32used to work in the presidential palace for François Hollande, especially when it came
06:37to economic issues.
06:39And so they know each other.
06:41Clearly in terms of policy, there is a lot of agreement on Europe, obviously.
06:49Michel Barnier has fulfilled every job.
06:55He has been a member of the European Parliament, a member of the European Commission.
07:01He has been also negotiating Brexit.
07:05And he was also a junior minister for European Affairs in the French government.
07:11So clearly this is an important issue for Emmanuel Macron, not only because Emmanuel
07:15Macron is very much pro-Europe, it's because France is under scrutiny from the European
07:22Union for its excessive budget, its excessive debt.
07:28And so having Michel Barnier is a way to send a reassuring message to Brussels that you're
07:35going to have a safe pair of hands at the helm of the government.
07:41And so this is important.
07:42So Europe, yes.
07:44On the issue of the budget, which is related, as I just discussed, Emmanuel Macron is very
07:48concerned that the financial markets are watching very carefully and very worryingly what's
07:56happening in France.
07:58We're seeing ballooning deficit, ballooning debt.
08:01We just learned that actually it might be much worse than expected, according to what
08:06the outgoing government is now telling MPs and so on in Parliament.
08:14And so Emmanuel Macron is very worried.
08:16And so he wants a very, very firm hand on much more austerity and make sure the budget
08:23doesn't get out of control, because there will be a vote for the new budget in the coming
08:28weeks.
08:31And on Emmanuel Macron's pension system reform, which he very, very much wants to keep and
08:37probably the reason why he refused to appoint a prime minister from the left, Bernard Cazeneuve,
08:44former socialist prime minister, was very much talked about.
08:47He apparently told Emmanuel Macron that he would at least suspend this reform.
08:52We know Michel Barnier, as a traditional conservative, has always been in favor of pushing the retirement
08:58age.
08:59It's now 64.
09:01He mentioned 65 at some point.
09:03So there'll be no daylight between Emmanuel Macron and Michel Barnier.
09:06But the main question, and this is why your question about a close relationship is important,
09:12is whether they will be able to work together.
09:14Emmanuel Macron is a president who's always had a rather weak prime minister, Édouard
09:21Philippe, Élisabeth Borne, Jean-Cat Stex, Gabriel Attal, pretty much unknown until they
09:27were appointed.
09:28Michel Barnier has a lot of experience.
09:31He's the oldest prime minister in the Fifth Republic.
09:34And so he'll probably not be easily pushed around by Emmanuel Macron.
09:38So we'll have to see how they work together.
09:40Indeed.
09:41And Andrew Smith, look, Michel Barnier, no stranger to difficult tasks.
09:47He was, as we've been saying, in charge of those Brexit negotiations on behalf of the
09:51European Union.
09:52Do you think now he can take on this massive challenge of trying to get enough support
09:58in parliament, in the French parliament, to form a stable government now?
10:04I think it's pretty clear that Barnier is not a kind of table-thumping big beast.
10:11But he is someone who's very experienced.
10:13He's someone who's very, very serious.
10:16And he is someone who I think will certainly be able to command that majority on the right,
10:23from the centre stretching way out to the far right as well.
10:26I think increasingly what we've seen probably in this appointment is that, first of all,
10:31it looks like Emmanuel Macron cares a lot more about the budget deficit than he does
10:35about the outcome of the legislative elections.
10:38But also I think it's a sign that the social policy that someone like Michel Barnier has
10:44spoken about in the past, if we remember when he ran in those Republican primaries, he talked
10:49about things like really quite extreme immigration policies, a moratorium on immigration that
10:55put him at odds with the European courts of justice, for example.
11:00This is someone I think who appeals certainly to the right and the far right.
11:05And I think it's someone who will protect the budget, exactly as we just heard there,
11:10which Macron has been very concerned about as well.
11:12So that idea, I think that twin focus of somebody who is willing to throw the party light on
11:18reducing the budget, but also able to court the affections of the far right with some
11:24quite strongly, I think, anti-immigrant rhetoric, perhaps, and willing to push a kind of right-wing
11:31government effect.
11:32But this is really more of a lurch again during Macron's presidency towards the right.
11:37There's very little on men's talk going on here that we can see.
11:41This is very much a kind of shift to the right, I think.
11:44Well, I want to bring Mark Perelman back in on that question then, Andrew Smith saying
11:49he is a figure clearly who appeals to the right and also to the far right.
11:53And the National Rally have become a sort of de facto kingmaker, haven't they, in this
11:57hunt for a prime minister.
12:00Why is that, given that it should be on paper the left that have the most influence, given
12:05that they won the most seats?
12:06Yes, but they didn't want enough seats to have real power in Parliament.
12:11They're very far.
12:12I mean, all the three blocks in Parliament, Emmanuel Macron's block, the left and the
12:18far right are very far from an absolute majority.
12:21And so this has been the issue.
12:25And basically, the National Rally has indeed been a kingmaker.
12:30Marine Le Pen, its leader, I mean, Jordane Bardella is now the de facto leader, but the
12:35real leader is Marine Le Pen.
12:38She's been communicating with Emmanuel Macron and she's been the reason why Emmanuel Macron's
12:45one of the first choices for prime minister was another politician from the conservative
12:51camp, Xavier Bertrand.
12:52But she's the bitter and personal enemy of Marine Le Pen.
12:56They've had really been fighting for years.
12:58And she basically said, no, there's no way.
13:01If he is your candidate, I will vote a motion of defiance with the left and he won't have
13:07a chance.
13:08Clearly, Emmanuel Macron decided to come up with Michel Barnier.
13:13And Marine Le Pen has told Emmanuel Macron privately and now publicly that we'll give
13:18him a shot.
13:19We'll have to wait, as you read earlier, for his general policy speech, what he proposes
13:25for the budget.
13:26And we'll see.
13:27But obviously, this means that she holds Michel Barnier's fate in her hands, because if she
13:35decides that at some point she doesn't agree with him, that maybe he's too pro-European,
13:42not tough enough on crime, not tough enough on immigration, she could say, well, you know
13:47what?
13:48I'll join hands with the left and we'll make the government fall, because that's the problem.
13:52Michel Barnier is appointed.
13:54OK, now he has to form a government.
13:57Not so easy, because he comes from a small party.
14:00He has to get people from other parties to show that it's a kind of open arms government,
14:06that it's not a small government of only technocrats or people who think exactly the same.
14:11And then he has not so much to get a vote of confidence in parliament, because we're
14:16not there anymore, but to avoid a motion of no confidence.
14:20And Marine Le Pen has said, OK, we'll see.
14:22But what is true today might not be true come November.
14:26And we might see governments come and go in the next few months in France.
14:30It's very unusual.
14:32But the political situation is unprecedented.
14:35I do want to talk to you a bit more about that question of a vote of confidence.
14:39But let's just bring back Andrew Smith briefly on the left.
14:43Andrew, I mean, there is real anger.
14:46Clearly, we played that soundbite earlier from Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon talking about this
14:50election being stolen.
14:51It's not just him, though.
14:52The socialists, the Greens, all wary of this appointment today of Barnier.
14:58Is it fair that they're criticising the president now for suggesting this isn't particularly
15:04democratic, given the number of votes that the left wing bloc won?
15:08What do you reckon?
15:10I think it certainly highlights there is a bit of a democratic deficit going on.
15:14Clearly, we could see, you know, that this is not really representing a huge mandate.
15:21There was no swell of support for someone like Michel Barnier.
15:26You know, remember, he came third place in the presidential primary for a party that
15:31won six percent of the vote.
15:32So clearly, there is no swell of public mandate for Michel Barnier.
15:37I think the left, it can be dangerous rhetoric, like MĂ©lenchon, to talk about stealing elections,
15:42to talk about that kind of thing.
15:43I would look to the comments of somebody like Marine Tendelier about the idea that this
15:48looks like a kind of mockery of what was being pushed for.
15:52I think the big thing we're seeing is that Macron and the presidency ran scared of the
15:57New Popular Front agenda, the platform on which they were elected.
16:01They ran scared of the spending commitments that were attached to that.
16:06And that really meant that the Popular Front could not rely on the centre, could not rely
16:10on Macron's bloc, because they wanted to unpick all the things they saw as achievements over
16:15the previous parliaments, and obviously they couldn't reach to the right because of their
16:19extreme differences.
16:20That isolates the Popular Front within their own confines, this kind of minority within
16:25a plurality of the wider parties, even if it is the largest within that bloc, it's not
16:30large enough as required.
16:32So I think there is really a right to be frustrated at what's going on, there's a right to feel
16:39annoyed about this, but also a need to look for moments of challenge and inflection.
16:45And perhaps there's opportunities to look for ministerial appointments for either the
16:51Socialist Party or the Greens within the context of a Barnier government, potentially as some
16:57way to try and kind of even that a little bit in terms of the overall outcome of this
17:01appointment.
17:02And Marc Perelman, then, you were talking about a vote of confidence and saying that
17:07perhaps that danger is immediately put to one side.
17:11Is it for Michel Barnier?
17:13Just tell us about the procedure now.
17:14Will he not face a vote of confidence immediately in Parliament, from the left perhaps?
17:20Well, he could from the left, but normally what happens when you appoint a prime minister,
17:25he gives a maiden policy speech, general policy speech to Parliament.
17:30And then he asked the Parliament for a vote of confidence on what he just said.
17:36But that's not mandatory.
17:38Actually, the previous prime ministers of Emmanuel Macron, since they only had a relative
17:42majority, they decided not to do this.
17:46But you can have a motion of no confidence that's tabled by the opposition.
17:52And you need to reach 289 votes, the majority.
17:57But if you add the votes from the national rally and the votes from the left, the leftist
18:04coalition, you reach easily that number.
18:09So obviously, if they decide, OK, we're not going to accept this, the prime minister doesn't
18:15have enough votes.
18:17So basically, Emmanuel Macron, and this is why it lasted for days and weeks and so on,
18:23was testing the waters.
18:24He was telling the left, OK, if I appoint, let's say, Bernard Cazeneuve, former prime
18:30minister of the Socialist Party, will you support him?
18:33He heard, not so much, because he's too much of a centrist.
18:36The national rally told him no.
18:38Xavier Bertrand, we just talked about it.
18:40It was a no-go.
18:41So he was forced to find someone that's palatable to either the leftist bloc or the national
18:50rally, because if not, it won't last.
18:53But obviously, you're under the threats of Marine Le Pen saying, you know what, after
19:00all, Michel Barnier, it's not going to work.
19:04That's it.
19:05And then we have to change and so on.
19:06So it could be like this for a while.
19:09It's going to be very, very difficult.
19:11It's going to be interesting to see what kind of government he forms, because if he's able
19:17to bring in, let's say, some people from other parties, they won't be ministers from the
19:22national rally.
19:24That's not even possible.
19:27But there could be ministers from civil society, maybe some ministers from the central left,
19:33the Greens and so on.
19:34Yes, the parties are saying the election was stolen.
19:37We should have had a shot at a prime ministership.
19:40But that's it.
19:41You know, now Michel Barnier has been appointed.
19:43Some might say, OK, we might try to influence from inside what we're not able to influence
19:49from outside.
19:50So this will be really, really interesting.
19:52And that will determine in a large way how he will fare in parliament.
19:58Thank you very much, Marc Perelman for us there.
20:00Just one final question for you, Andrew Smith, if I may.
20:03On the optics of this, we have France's youngest prime minister stepping aside now for someone
20:10who will be its oldest.
20:11Barnier is 73.
20:13What do you think about the optics of that?
20:15It's a challenging one, isn't it?
20:18It probably shows that one of the things you can say about Barnier is that he doesn't have
20:23any ambitions for the next presidential election.
20:27We've of course seen already another former prime minister declare his intentions as regards
20:33the upcoming presidential elections after Emmanuel Macron's term ends.
20:38But unless France goes the way of the United States, it looks like someone like Barnier
20:42is probably older than would be expected for a presidential candidate.
20:47We know he's a hugely experienced figure.
20:49We know he's been a minister.
20:50We know he's been a commissioner.
20:51He's done all these things in the past.
20:53And this is more of a last hurrah, perhaps, than a platform for a new campaign.
20:58What kind of optics does it have?
20:59I think it says actually that if people have been talking about chaos, if they've been
21:03talking about political blockages, then this looks like a kind of serious, experienced
21:07figure who's been trusted with the teller.
21:09And I think this is really a message as much to France's European allies about France's
21:14budget deficit and its need to bring that down.
21:17It's a message about stability and trying to repair some of the shock that followed
21:22Emmanuel Macron's strange dissolution.
21:24And actually, this is about trying to convey an image of stability and sort of stable institutions
21:31in the face of quite kind of extreme political maneuvering around it.
21:37So in terms of the optics, I think that's what they're going for.
21:39I think there will be protests against it.
21:41We know they've already been called for by the left.
21:43We'll see how these things develop.
21:44And of course, it remains to be seen how that government will come together, whether or
21:49not Barnier will be able to be successful.
21:52Andrew Smith, it's been great to get your views on this this afternoon.
21:55Thanks very much indeed, Andrew Smith, talking to us there from Queen Mary University.
21:58Well, let's go live to Brussels on the programme there.
22:02Pierre Banizet is standing by for us.
22:05Pierre, look, Michel Barnier is somebody who's had two major European roles, Brexit negotiator
22:13for the EU and the head of the EU Commission.
22:16Tell us then about his long career as a sort of European statesman.
22:24He was, in a way, the longest serving European commissioner because he's had three European
22:32careers, three different ones, actually, because he was first nominated as the French commissioner
22:39in 1999 when there were two commissioners by country at that time.
22:45He was commissioner for regional policy, which was not the main point of his five year term.
22:53The main point, the main focus of what he did then was to sit in the Convention for
22:59the Future of Europe, the convention that gave the constitutional treaty, which was
23:05rejected by the Dutch and the French in 2005.
23:09Then he went back to France in order to be a minister in Paris and came back for a second
23:16term of commissioner where he was nominated as the common market commissioner.
23:23And that's where his political commitment really gave all its measure.
23:30And he was the one who pushed for very strong reform of the European common market.
23:37And that was his second leg of his European voyage, if you want, because after that he
23:43came back because he was nominated by Jean-Claude Juncker as Mr Brexit, the one who negotiated
23:50the exit of the United Kingdom.
23:53Indeed.
23:54And that was a thorny, long, difficult job that he had as the Brexit negotiator.
24:01What was Barnier's reputation in that period?
24:06Well, that's where he gave his full measure, if you want.
24:10First, he started out by learning the language and something which he had never bothered
24:16to do before.
24:18He learned English in a few years at the start of his stint as a Brexit negotiator.
24:25That started out quite well for him because he did it the old politician's way.
24:31He went throughout Europe talking to fishermen, to agricultures, farmers and so on in order
24:37to be able to have the full picture.
24:39And he was able to talk with Downing Street.
24:43He was able to talk with the negotiators in front of him, even though from the British
24:49side that changed quite a lot.
24:51And he managed to find a way to have this treaty, these exit treaty signed and to follow
24:58it up afterwards when the United Kingdom came out.
25:01And he was rather respected from the other side of the channel, what the Brussels they
25:07call the wrong side of the channel nowadays.
25:10And he was quite respected in Europe as well because he's a hard worker.
25:15That was his main reputation here during this stint as a negotiator.
25:20Pierre Benazze, live in Brussels there talking to us a bit about the European view of France's
25:26incoming Prime Minister, Michel Barnier.
25:28Thanks very much indeed, Pierre.
25:29Good to hear from you.
25:32Well, we'll take a quick breaker on around the world now.
25:35Do stay with us, though.
25:36We'll have much more news still to come, including more analysis of the appointment of Michel
25:41Barnier as France's new prime minister.