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Michel Barnier — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Prime Minister

Following gains by opposition parties in the legislative elections called by President Emmanuel Macron in the summer of 2024, the prime minister, Gabriel Attal, resigned. Macron initially refused his resignation but accepted it on 16 July. On 5 September, Barnier was appointed as prime minister by Macron. The period between Attal's resignation and Barnier's appointment was the longest period that the French Fifth Republic had spent under a caretaker government. Barnier is the oldest prime minister in modern French history. Dominique Moïsi, a French political scientist, described Barnier as a compromise candidate, chosen to be acceptable to parties from the centre, the right and the far right.

Barnier's initial challenges as Prime Minister was forming a new government, passing the vote of confidence (with a minimum of 289 out of 577 votes) and submitting the 2025 budget by 1 October to parliament according to Reuters, further remarking that it would "be no easy task with the budget deficit already this year running billions of euros over target, leaving Barnier tough choices about calibrating spending cuts and tax rises" and risking the government's position in parliament. On 6 September, Barnier stated that he would continue some of Macron's policies, including refusing to repeal the raising of the retirement age to 64. On immigration he said, "There still is a feeling that our borders are sieves and that migration flows aren't being controlled." In an interview, he remarked that the new government would include the "presidential camp" and "maybe maybe ministers of the previous government".

Barnier was faced with a National Assembly divided nearly evenly into three blocs: the leftist New Popular Front with a plurality of seats, Macron's centrist to centre-right Ensemble, and the far-right National Rally. Marine Le Pen, the leader of National Rally, praised Barnier as "respectful of National Rally voters", but expressed caution as to his legislative agenda. The New Popular Front rejected Barnier's appointment and called for demonstrations against Macron. Olivier Faure, the leader of the Socialist Party, accused Macron of a "denial of democracy." Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the left-wing La France Insoumise, said that Macron had "stolen" the election by not appointing a prime minister from the New Popular Front and called for protests against the new government. According to France's Interior Ministry, around 110,000 people took part in these protests, which were held in Paris, Montauban, Nice, Lille, Strasbourg and Montpellier, as well as in several rural areas.

On 2 December 2024, Barnier invoked article 49.3 of the French Constitution to adopt the Social Security budget for 2025 without submitting it to a parliamentary vote. The decision happened after several last-ditch concessions to find a compromise failed, prompting both the New Popular Front and the National Rally to file motions of no confidence against his government. On 4 December, a majority of deputies voted to oust Barnier's government, which became the first to lose a motion of no-confidence since Georges Pompidou's in 1962.

Political positions

Following his appointment as prime minister in 2024, the BBC described Barnier as "a committed, patriotic conservative in the tradition of ... Charles de Gaulle". In a conversation with Politico during July 2024, after the 7 July snap election, Barnier said France's most pressing issues were immigration, the state of its public finances and rebuilding its industrial and agricultural capacities. Upon his appointment as prime minister, he listed his main priorities as education, security and immigration control.

During his 2021 presidential campaign, Barnier stated he would be in favour of proposing a referendum on whether to tighten the legal framework for immigration in France. As a candidate, he stated his intention in "putting a stop to non-European immigration for three to five years," during an interview with French weekly magazine Le Point. He proposed to "immediately stop regularizations, rigorously limit family reunification, reduce the reception of foreign students and the systematic execution of the double penalty". He also proposed expanding prison capacity by 20,000 and imposing mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes.

On economic issues, Barnier has been characterised as close to the neoliberal policies of Emmanuel Macron, including the reduction of taxes and business regulation. As a presidential candidate, Barnier proposed cutting production taxes by €10 billion, raising the retirement age from 62 to 65, lengthening the working week and tightening the conditions for access to social assistance.

Barnier is regarded as pro-European, as supporting NATO, and as favouring support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. He was described as a "Euro-ecstatic" by François Cornut-Gentille, his supporter and colleague in the Republicans. During his presidential campaign, many media organisations commented that Barnier sounded like a Eurosceptic and Brexit supporter, contradicting previous positions he had taken on the matter.

In 1981, Barnier voted for the abolition of capital punishment, following a number of other right-wing deputies in breaking party instructions not to do so. In the same year, he was among the conservative politicians, including Jacques Chirac and François Fillon, who voted against reducing the age of consent for same-sex relationships to 15, the same as that for mixed-sex couples. He has made few statements on same-sex relations in the years since.