After two weeks of negotiations, the composition of Michel Barnier’s government should finally be revealed in the coming days. After a final meeting with President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, September 19, the Prime Minister’s office announced last night that the government should be officially “presented before Sunday.”
Coming from the ranks of the Republicans, Michel Barnier took an important step on Thursday in the difficult development of his executive, which does not have an absolute majority in the Assembly, by going to the Elysée in the evening to submit his list to Emmanuel Macron. A “constructive” exchange of around fifty minutes where the Prime Minister presented “the architecture and composition of his government which respects the balances” between the different formations which will constitute it, indicated Matignon.
Three full-time ministries for the LR right
“In any case, he does not reject any name,” a close friend of the head of state told Agence France-Presse (AFP) about the latter. A sign that the blockages of the last few days between the right and the “central bloc” supporting Emmanuel Macron seem to be partly lifted. The government should thus have 38 members, including 16 full ministers. Among them, seven Macronists, three members of the Republicans (LR), 2 from the MoDem party, one from the Horizons party, and one from the centrist UDI party, according to Gabriel Attal on Thursday evening.
Despite its failure in the legislative elections, the Les Républicains party would thus succeed in obtaining important ministries within the Barnier government. Among the three ministers from the right is the leader of the LR group in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau, who could be appointed to the Ministry of the Interior, according to several sources from the right and the central bloc. Similarly, MPs Patrick Hetzel and Annie Genevard are expected to be appointed respectively for Higher Education and Agriculture.
In addition to these three full-time ministries, LR would inherit six other portfolios, including that of Secularism for the regional councilor of Ile-de-France Othman Nasrou, Overseas for Senator François-Noël Buffet and Family for Senator Laurence Girard. But no ministry for Laurent Wauquiez: the leader of the LR deputies, who harbors ambitions for the Élysée for 2027, took the lead by announcing yesterday that he was giving up on entering the government after having refused the post of Minister of Finance. The identity of the person who would occupy Bercy, with the heavy task of straightening out the country’s finances, remains unknown for the moment.
A few Macronist names and a lot of vagueness
Another winner of the negotiations despite the disavowal at the ballot box: the presidential coalition Ensemble pour la République (EPR). Among the seven full ministries obtained by the “Macronist” camp, the resigning MoDem Minister for European Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, will be proposed for Foreign Affairs, while the Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, should be reappointed, according to a central bloc official quoted by AFP. This coalition should also be awarded Labor for MP Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet (Renaissance) and Health for her colleague Geneviève Darrieussecq, a member of François Bayrou’s MoDem, according to a former majority official.
For the rest of the government, the details are still vague. For Education, the name of the outgoing Minister of Culture Rachida Dati circulated all afternoon on Thursday. But in the evening, a source close to the discussions rather mentioned that of the Renaissance du Nord MP Violette Spillebout, while warning that the names that leak are not necessarily set in stone.
Similarly, an enigmatic “miscellaneous left” minister in full service is expected to join Michel Barnier’s government, after the Prime Minister has repeatedly refused on this side of the political spectrum. The name of Didier Migaud, current president of the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP) and from the Socialist Party, has been circulating as a candidate for the Ministry of Justice.
The final composition of the Barnier government should be known by Sunday. By then, the names of ministers mentioned on Thursday evening will have to pass the test of “the usual ethical checks” and obtain the green light from the HATVP, Matignon specified.