Let me go out on a limb here and predict that Michel Barnier, who is trying to rekindle his modest and largely forgotten political career on the back of his notoriety as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, is not going to be the next president of France.
Barnier is currently famous (but only, I suspect, for 15 minutes) for demanding a three to five year suspension of immigration into France. Bad news for Swedes seeking a retirement chateaux in the Dordogne. But seriously, this is all he’s got? The nightly riots and attacks on police in France, provoking excited talk of civil war, seem to originate with people who are already here. And how does he propose to keep the immigrants out?
It is a minor curiosity of the French presidential election campaign now underway that the candidacy of Barnier seems to be taken more seriously in Britain than France. He’s not registering here in any of the major polls.
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