French Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s hard-won new government faced pressure from day one on Sunday, as it came under fire from opponents on both the left and far right — which are now the largest blocs in parliament.
Eleven weeks of negotiations after President Emmanuel Macron called spot National Assembly elections finally ended Saturday with his announcement by a cabinet that marked a significant shift to the right.
The new cabinet’s first meeting is scheduled for Monday afternoon.
But opposition politicians from the left have already said they will challenge Barnier’s government with a confidence motion, with far-right politicians also slamming its composition.
In the July election, a left-wing alliance called the New Popular Front (NFP) won the most parliamentary seats of any political bloc, but not enough for an overall majority.
Veteran far-right leader Marine Le Pen meanwhile saw her National Rally emerge as the single largest party in the Assembly.
Macron had argued that the left would be unable to muster enough support to form a government that would not immediately be brought down in parliament, and rejected a National Rally candidate over the party’s extremist legacy.
He turned instead to Barnier to lead a government drawing mostly on parliamentary support from Macron’s allies, as well as from the conservative Republicans (LR) and the centrists groups — even though the LR came in fourth in the June snap election.
‘No future’
Talks on the distribution of the 39 cabinet posts continued right up to Saturday’s official announcement, insiders said, with moments of sharp tension between the president and his prime minister.
Far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon has called the new lineup “a government of the general election losers”.
France, he said, should “get rid” of the government “as soon as possible”, while his France Unbowed party threatened to “increase popular pressure” on the government.
Even before the announcement, thousands of people took to the streets of Paris and other French cities Saturday in a left-wing protest to denounce what they said was a denial of July’s election results.
Socialist party chairman Oliver Faure dismissed Barnier’s cabinet as “a reactionary government that gives democracy the finger”.
“An unnatural government against nature,” was the verdict of Marine Tondelier, leader of the Greens party.
Macron had been counting on a neutral stance from the far right, but National Rally leader Jordan Bardella was quick to condemn the composition of the new government.
It marked “a return to Macronism” and so had “no future whatsoever”, he said on Saturday.
The first major task for Barnier, best known internationally for leading the European Union’s Brexit negotiations with Britain, will be to submit a 2025 budget plan addressing France’s financial situation, which the prime minister this week called “very serious”.
France was placed on a formal procedure for violating European Union budgetary rules before Barnier was picked as head of government.
The difficult job of submitting a budget plan to parliament next month falls to 33-year-old Antoine Armand, the new finance minister. He has previously served as head of parliament’s economic affairs commission.
Armand told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper that “exceptional and targeted” tax cuts could not be ruled out while also pledging to cut public spending.
Among the other new faces in key cabinet posts are Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, while Bruno Retailleau of the Republicans takes over at the interior ministry. His portfolio covers immigration and his right-wing credentials have created unease even in Macron’s own camp.
Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, a close Macron ally, has kept his job.
The only left-of-centre politician is Didier Migaud, a little-known former Socialist named justice minister.
Barnier is to address parliament with a key policy speech on October 1.
