So farewell Michel Barnier, the man who will now be best remembered not as the suave face of the EU in the Brexit negotiations, but as the most hapless prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic. That is assuming his successor, Francois Bayrou, isn’t ousted in under three months.
The French media has been full of stories over the weekend as to how Bayrou pressurised Macron into making him premier. The President’s first choice was his defence minister, Sébastien Lecornu, a loyalist from top to toe, who was informed of his elevation shortly after Barnier’s government had fallen.
Having worked his way through three prime ministers this year, Macron can’t afford to see a fourth come and go in a short space of time
Bayrou knew none of this. When his presence was requested at the Elysee Palace last Friday it was, he assumed, to be anointed prime minister. When he learned otherwise, there was, reportedly, a ‘heated’ exchange. The media claim Bayrou ‘flew into a rage’, and issued Macron with an ultimatum: either I’m prime minister or I withdraw my party’s support from the centrist coalition.
Bayou leads the Democratic Movement party, which has 34 of the 163 seats in Macron’s centrist coalition in parliament. Their removal would leave Macron more exposed than ever to his enemies on the left and the right.
So Macron caved in to Bayrou’s threat, and a terse statement was issued by the Elysee informing the nation of their fourth prime minister this year.
It appears that even Macron’s inner circle are beginning to question to competency of the president. One remarked to a Sunday newspaper: ‘We can see how out of touch he is… he’s finding it hard to gauge the extent and causes of his unpopularity.’
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Only four months separates Barnier and Bayrou in age but there is a vast difference in their approach to politics. The patrician Barnier is a gentleman, too naive and trusting for his own good. He didn’t take seriously Marine Le Pen’s threat to join the left in a vote of no confidence against his government. Consequently, throughout his three months in office he never really addressed the concerns of her 11 million voters. His only concession was the appointment as interior minister of Bruno Retailleau, a man whose conservative views reportedly left Macron feeling ‘ashamed’. Macron hobbled Retailleau’s power by insisting Barnier appoint as his Justice Minister Didier Migaud, a Socialist known for being soft on crime and its causes.
For a man touted as a negotiator par excellence during Brexit, Barnier was inept in dealing with Macron. In 2021 Barnier had called for a referendum on immigration – an idea that has the support of three-quarters of the country – so why didn’t he promise to put this most contentious of issues to the vote? It would have won him unanimous support among Le Pen’s National Rally voters and among his own centre-right Republicans. Nothing would have underlined more his promise in his acceptance speech to bring ‘rupture and change’ to the country.
Barnier turned out to be the President’s puppet, so Le Pen cut the strings. Bayrou says he will not be manipulated in a similar manner.
He is a veteran politician, known for his ferocious ambition and ruthless pragmatism. These characteristics have earned him many enemies over the years, none more so than former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who these days acts as Macron’s sounding board. In his 2020 memoir, Sarkozy warned Macron not to trust Bayrou because he has ‘always betrayed’ his allies, of which he was one.
In his first speech as prime minister on Friday evening, Bayrou expressed his regret about ‘the glass wall that has been built up between people and government. For me, this glass wall, this separation, this rupture, is the enemy to be fought’.
Bayrou has contributed to the construction of the glass wall. He and a great many of the political class voted in favour of the EU Constitution in 2005; they lost the vote but they went ahead and ratified the Constitution, displaying a contempt for the people that has been neither forgotten or forgiven.
Bayrou also believes that concerns about mass immigration are exaggerated, and last year he expressed his opposition to a hardline immigration bill.
Bayrou is under no illusions as to the size of the challenge he faces as Premier; he has likened it to scaling the Himalayas. But he may be a little deluded about his own efficacy. Like his president, Bayrou is not short of self-confidence and for years he has dreamt of high office, frequently flip-flopping from left to right in pursuit of power.
Now he has power but not as much as he thinks. Jean-Luc Melenchon’s left-wing coalition have already denounced his appointment, and have vowed to table a motion of no confidence. Le Pen has said she will wait and see how Bayrou governs in the coming weeks and months.
Having worked his way through three prime ministers this year, Macron can’t afford to see a fourth come and go in a short space of time. It would make the pressure for him to resign irresistible, particularly as he said recently that he doesn’t want another dissolution of parliament before the end of his mandate in 2027.
The common objective of Melenchon and Le Pen is to render Macron so impotent that he has no choice but to resign. The most effective way to achieve this is to eliminate his prime ministers and make the country ungovernable. Barnier has gone and Bayrou is next.
French politics has become a sordid and self-interested circus, and all the people can do is look on in mounting disgust from behind the glass wall.
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