I’m talking to you about a time… On Monday, November 25, Michel Barnier receives Marine Le Pen, accompanied by MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy. There is fire at the lake, but the Prime Minister prefers to talk about the snow on the mountain. Here he is, as is often the case, rolling out his CV, which takes some time: the general council of Savoie, his presidency, then the European Commission, his ministerial portfolios, up to a more personal digression about his family in Martinique. The RN was not impressed. Sunday evening, the party considers that the government “ended the discussion” on the social security budget. In the event of recourse to the famous article 49.3 on Monday, the path to censorship appears clear.
The Prime Minister’s future hangs by a thread, after all he himself so often takes refuge in the past. On Tuesday 26, at 8 p.m. on TF1, Michel Barnier brings back into the spotlight a word that Raymond Barre used with jubilation – it was still almost fifty years ago: haro on the “microcosm”. We have the references of his arteries. He likes to quote Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie, whose writings he devoured in his high school in Albertville – who still reads today this hero of the Resistance who was then a figure of these famous “left Gaullists”?
And who still thrills to the exploits of skier Jean-Claude Killy, co-organizer of the 1992 Winter Olympics, the great pride of Michel Barnier? The sportsman taught him the art of punctuality, that politeness of kings: “Arrive on time.” The head of government transmitted this precept to his ministers. With one caveat: he has a fairly dense network of informants to ensure his respect. Michel Barnier, more Guy Roux than Didier Deschamps. A – young – minister laughs: “Of course, he’s not overconnected, but he’s not the nice old grandpa.”
He will be 74 in January. He is the man of his time, which is not always the present. But when the present is crazy, when censorship threatens, when “the storm” approaches, is it a saving grace or a fatal flaw? Arriving in Matignon, Michel Barnier has the phone of Jean-Michel Baylet, the 78-year-old former president of the Left Radicals, whom he calls in search of left-wing personalities, but not that of Marine Le Pen. Social networks are not his daily bread. At first, he does not see Emmanuel Macron’s declarations calling, in South America, for “stability” in France; one of his advisors will have to show them to him.
It is understood, he has experience as long as an arm and yet… On September 19, when he brought together for the first time all the leaders of the parties which constitute the common base, he told them: “I must tell you that I I was surprised to have heard very little about France and the French” – until then everyone had talked more about the men and women who were going to become ministers than about the ideas to be applied. An angel with a Gaullian appearance passes into the room.
A few days earlier, Laurent Wauquiez fell from his chair. He meets Michel Barnier at Matignon. Finally. It’s been a few days since his phone stopped ringing, he who worked for his nomination. Sometimes silence is better. “I am only required to keep my commitments within the limits of the best interests of France,” believes the boss of the deputies of the Republican Right (DR). The bombastic formula annoys him. “The level of significance of small ambitions strikes Michel Barnier enormously, despite fifty years of public life,” defends a close friend of the head of government.
Not the same language as Emmanuel Macron
Was it better before? On September 17, when he consulted the parties one by one, he was pleasantly surprised to hear, as in the general’s heyday, the communists extending their hand when the socialists or the Insoumis, for example, gave him a helping hand. of honor, even refusing to travel. “There are subjects on which we can work with you, the industrialization of the country of course, but also security,” says Fabien Roussel. “I didn’t expect you to say that to me at all!”, replies the head of government.
The new world is terra incognita for him. He does not speak the same language as Emmanuel Macron. The Prime Minister was surprised by the degraded state of relations between the executive and the intermediate bodies, so poorly treated for seven years by the president: for the Savoyard, it is inconceivable to govern against them, worse without them. First misunderstanding. “At the same time”, supreme virtue? Second misunderstanding. The former European Commissioner saw the right everywhere (except in France) showing resilience, even in the event of electoral defeats. So he never believed that Macronism would be anything other than a product of circumstance, however brilliant it may be. To be and to have been… When Michel Barnier brought a breath of fresh air to the political class in the fall, it was Emmanuel Macron who frowned, annoyed at being overtaken, he, the figure of overtaking.
From 2021, he tries to close the Macronist “parenthesis”. His failure in the Republican primary closed the door to him. Well, he’ll go out the window. At the beginning of January 2024, Michel Barnier has lunch with Gabriel Attal. Emmanuel Macron is seeking to replace Elisabeth Borne, worn out by two years at the helm. So he pleads his case to the young Minister of Education. Is he not capable of implementing a coalition with the right? Only he can offer France an absolute majority, a vestige of the old world. Missed. His interlocutor wins the prize a few days later. Beautiful player, Michel Barnier sends a message of congratulations to Gabriel Attal.
He doesn’t use the same grammar as his predecessor, you just have to remember their first exchanges. On Thursday, September 5, just before the transfer of power on the steps, Michel Barnier: “We don’t use informal terms, do we?” Gabriel Attal: “Yes, I confirm that we are going to see each other.” That day, he did not ask any advice from the one who could be his son. He just inquired… about his home.
They hardly understand each other. As soon as the executive was formed, Michel Barnier was surprised by the right of scrutiny exercised by Gabriel Attal over the Macronist ministers. The president of the deputies Together for the Republic (EPR) criticizes the stiffness of the diplomat, privately called “the bailiff”. The misunderstanding is abysmal. In head of government, there is “head”. Yes, but without an absolute majority, the boss loses his splendor. In September, we explain. Michel Barnier: “We are not under the Fourth Republic.” Gabriel Attal: “We’re not quite under the Fifth either.” A generational link, quickly. This is good, Jean-François Copé is close to both men. He plays diplomat, makes a phone call to everyone before lunch at Matignon. “You have an interest in getting along,” he explains to them over and over again.
“I didn’t roll on the ground to be Prime Minister”
Age camouflages many faults, often attributed to younger people. Pride becomes respect for customs. Stiffness, straightness. “Why do you want me to start a career as a dictator at 67?” de Gaulle professed. “Why do you want ambition to devour me at 73?”, Michel Barnier could add. The general interest is him! The Savoyard plays on its “vintage” image. It poses as an inverted mirror of a political class inevitably consumed by ambition. “I didn’t roll on the ground to be Prime Minister,” he repeats like a slogan. Its function is not an additional CV line, but a priesthood. From this crumbled Assembly only suffering can arise. Former Minister of the Sea Hervé Berville should even thank him for dismissing him. “Perhaps I’m doing you a favor by not naming you,” he whispers to her when breaking the news.
This sacrificial attitude amuses those who know Michel Barnier. It is not considered insincere, but is combined with an oversized ego and a thirst for recognition. It is enough to see him, almost at every council of ministers, making a point of speaking after the President of the Republic when international affairs are discussed.
He digests defeats badly. Like this evening in December 2021, where he was waiting before joining Valérie Pécresse’s HQ after the first round of the primary. A regular interlocutor is surprised by his obsession with the 2015 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regionals, during which he had to step aside behind Laurent Wauquiez. Yet he knows how to win elections. When Renew MEP Valérie Hayer met him at the beginning of 2014, he immediately praised his “extraordinary” score in the 2009 European elections. His appointment to Matignon was his revenge for a slippery presidential destiny. The “statesman” Barnier led a clever underground campaign to win, far from the media radar. When an LR elected official tells him by SMS that he plans to put his name on television, he acquiesces with false coquetry.
Political life has changed
This personality isn’t so “vintage”, after all. His practice of power is. “Out of time”, in any case. He is head of a government of which he does not know a significant number of members. Of which he did not choose some heavyweights. On September 20, Michel Barnier spoke for the first time about his life with Anne Genetet. And it’s to ask him to become Minister of Education! He did not choose it, it was Gabriel Attal who imposed it on him. A departure from the traditional reading of institutions, he refuses to be head of a majority which does not exist and which he does not know well – that is a lot.
This absence of authority is mixed with an intense feeling of freedom. Gabriel Attal notes with surprise this character trait, the antithesis of the political cauldron. “He feels very strong,” notes an EPR executive. “As powerful as a Prime Minister with an absolute majority.” Too strong? Common base deputies are surprised by his stiffness and his absence of regular interlocutors in the Assembly. An old acquaintance sums it up: “We would never have thought of him in the event of an absolute majority. He should have been the king of bargaining, and played the game that led to his appointment. He did not do it out of rigidity. ‘spirit. In this sense, it is not adapted to the times.” The Brexit negotiator was calm. His allies will not dare to censor him. Why would he get bogged down in shopkeeping negotiations? He manages France and speaks to the French.
But political life has changed. We do “shots” there. We only respect “customs” as long as they serve you. Michel Barnier discovers, like every French person, the criticisms of the Minister of the Economy Antoine Armand against his budget in The Parisian. Turn on your television and see Laurent Wauquiez make an announcement for 500 million euros. “He has never made any political moves,” notes an EPR executive. “His culture is light years away from the ways of doing politics since 2017.”
Political life has changed. The National Rally established itself as a major force. Calls for “stability” or “a spirit of responsibility” find a minor echo in the far-right group. They would only be an instrument of the “system” to domesticate the protest forces. Irrationality inhabits this party. Michel Barnier waited to be cornered by Marine Le Pen to make concessions. Not without awkwardness. He announced on TF1 that he was entrusting a mission on proportional representation to the political scientist Pascal Perrineau, an intellectual of his generation. This is bad news, the boss of the RN deputies (to whom he did not give the name of the expert during their interview the day before) hates him. Public opinion, which he brandishes as a standard, is of no help to him. Its survival is not at stake in French villages, but in the National Assembly. “We are not under the Fourth Republic,” he said. Maybe so. Michel Barnier, too young for the job?
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