Thursday, September 5, past 6 p.m. As tradition dictates, Gabriel Attal gives way to the newly appointed Michel Barnier on the steps of the Hôtel de Matignon. In front of this image of a future ex-Prime Minister with still youthful features and his white-haired successor, nicknamed the “French Joe Biden” by The Worldthe transalpine daily The Post attempts an antithesis: “The oldest Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic replaces the youngest ever appointed.”
A way of highlighting a clear change in style between the young wolf of Macronism and the old warhorse of “social Gaullism”. A contrast that the Corriere della sera which describes in particular a Michel Barnier who is “a little paternalistic”, “annoyed by the unstoppable eloquence of his young and brilliant predecessor”. In reality, a staging which only serves to mark the distance with the policy conducted until then.
Barnier, a synthesis between Le Pen and Macron?
Because in fact, “Macron chooses Macron” mocks the Spanish newspaper The Country. “Its very economical profile” is not “a coincidence” according to The Worldwhich recalls that this is a “key area for Macron”. Thus, the Munich-based centre-left daily South German newspaper is impatient “to see how the relationship will develop” between the new Prime Minister and Emmanuel Macron, who “probably will not be able to continue his political line as before”.
But Spanish The Country to qualify, pointing out the fact that Jupiter “has persisted in looking for a Prime Minister who would not call into question his reforms”. Like the highly contested law on retirement pensions of 2023, suggests the daily newspaper across the Rhine The Mirror. Or even the last immigration reform which had aroused the ire of the left at the end of 2023, underlines the British The GuardianOn this issue, the foreign press did not fail to note the shift to the right.
So much so that Michel Barnier “seems increasingly out of step with his Gaullist family,” notes the Financial Times. In ItalyCorriere della will be goes so far as to speak of a “Le Pen-compatible profile” because of its positions considered close to those of the National Rally (RN) concerning migration policy. In the wake of the Guardian, The World unearths one of his flagship proposals from his campaign for the Republican primaries at the end of 2021: “a three- to five-year moratorium” on immigration. Red line for the left.
At that time, his call to regain French legal sovereignty in the face of Community jurisdictions had seriously stunned Brussels and its observers, he assures The Guardian. And for good reason, Michel Barnier had until then embodied the figure par excellence of the MP who had swapped his national political career for the mysteries of Brussels. What’s more, he had distinguished himself at the end of the 2010s as the chief Brexit negotiator. A mission that earned him the nickname “Mister Brexit”, smiles The World.
“Mister Brexit” and his spreadsheets
Unsurprisingly, British newspapers are making a big deal of the role played by the man who was a minister to three Presidents of the Republic in the United Kingdom’s detachment from the European Union. And they have forgotten nothing of this Savoyard “lover of anoraks and spreadsheets” as the headline reads The Guardian who unearths some anecdotes in his columns.
Like all those times when “British figures, mainly business leaders and pro-Leave politicians, tried to coax him by offering him a hamper including cheddar, tea and jam, while David Davis prepared a sumptuous lunch of Welsh lamb at Downing Street in 2017, then beef Wellington at a later lunch in Brussels”. Problem, continues the English daily, which gives some clues about the diet of the new occupant of Matignon: “Barnier was known in Brussels for limiting himself to fish at lunches – often plain fish and spinach”.
One last story for the road: the former vice-president of the European Commission is said to have displayed in his Brussels office “a photo of his role as co-organiser of the 1992 Winter Olympics, which earned him a nickname (yet another one): the ski instructor”. Washington Post rightly notes that the two men who now form the executive couple “claim the Olympic Games as one of the successes of their careers”. Michel Barnier’s began in the early seventies, notes The Post. Time that those under twenty cannot know. The master of clocks, born in 1977, neither.
The dangerous gamble of a Faustian pact with the RN
A political career between Savoy, Paris, Brussels and London, more than half a century long, which may reassure the tenant of the Elysée, who has been prevented for almost two months by the unprecedented configuration of the National Assembly under the Fifth Republic. So Emmanuel Macron has chosen – “by default” he believes The Geneva Tribune – this man devoid of ambition for 2027 to “get the country out of chaos”, argues The World, and to vote on the 2025 budget, the text of which will be examined from October 1 at the Palais Bourbon.
However, it is up to the new head of government to resist attempts at censorship by the opposition, recalls the Swiss daily. The Time. Because the left-wing alliance, which has some 190 deputies, received “his designation as an affront”, as stressed The country, has already made it known that she would vote for a motion of censure. Her political proximity to the RN should, however, help her to free her government team from this sword of Damocles.
But the counterpart could well be dearly paid. Because by entrusting his destiny to the party with the flame, Michel Barnier risks being forced to push the helm even further to starboard, leaving behind the left wing of Macronism. On the front page of its site, the conservative British daily The Spectator summarizes: French Prime Minister in September 2024? “Hard to imagine a worse position.”