France’s new PM welcomed by Brussels but faces uphill struggle at home

Alison Hird

6 September 2024 at 12:09 pm·1-min read

EU leaders have given France’s new PM Michel Barnier a warm welcome – but the former Brexit negotiator faces tough challenges, and opposition, on the domestic front.

A seasoned member of France’s conservative Republicans (LR) party, Barnier is seen as a steady hand for President Emmanuel Macron, who appointed him after two months of political deadlock.

The 73-year-old’s career spans more than five decades – as an MP and minister with diverse portfolios including finance, agriculture and foreign affairs.

Barnier is unlikely to seek to unravel the president’s pro-business reforms – including lower corporate tax, a loosening of the labour code to make hiring and firing easier, scrapping the wealth tax, and the contested pension reform that upped the legal age of retirement to 64.

But he’s spent more time in Brussels than in France, having twice served as an EU commissioner – first handling regional policy, then the internal market and financial services which involved negotiating the December 2020 signalling Britain’s departure from the EU.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on social media that Barnier "has the interests of Europe and France at heart, as his long experience demonstrates".

The sentiment in Brussels was one of relief.

He has roundly refused and gone for a man from the right.

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