Faced with a fractious French parliament, Emmanuel Macron was counting on one man to form a functioning government: Michel Barnier, whose “method” helped tame Brexit.
But three months later, the French president’s gamble with the former EU Brexit negotiator, known for his ability to bring diplomacy to a political rift, appears to have fallen flat.
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At this stage, the only thing that France’s left-wing bloc and Marine Le Pen’s far-right team agree on is expulsion Barnier. Barring a last minute surprise, he will be removed from office on Wednesday at distrust a vote prompted by his attempt to push ahead with an unpopular austerity budget.
If it falls, it will mark a setback for the “Barnier method”, which the prime minister has promised will be based on consensus-building and listening, short on the ministerial theatrics of past Macron governments.
The 73-year-old also cited his age and experience – including four terms as a minister in Paris, two terms as a European commissioner and five years spent fighting Brexit for the Commission – as proof that he can rise above the fray.
Unlike previous prime ministers under Macron, he even decreed that Le Pen and her National Rassemblement party should not be treated as pariahs — an acknowledgment that his appointment and his survival as prime minister depended on her tacit support.
Nevertheless, Le Pen is on Monday knocked down the boom about Barnier after several days of talks in which he tried to solve her “red lines” for adopting the budget.
The concessions he made were not enough. “It was an impossible mission for Barnier,” said Senator François Patriat, a long-time Macron ally who has supported the government.
Accusations are already flying about who is to blame. Barnier’s allies say he has tried to keep the opposition at bay and complain of an increasingly hostile French political culture that prevents any cooperation. They claim that Le Pen kept moving the goalposts in the last negotiations and that she never intended to agree to a compromise.
“Despite his diplomatic skills, he was always walking a tightrope in danger of falling at any moment,” said Véronique Louwagie, an MP from Barnier’s conservative Les Republicains party. “Barnier found himself at odds with the RN who were dishonest about their intentions and didn’t really want to negotiate.”
His opponents say his promises of openness were a sham and that he bypassed the lower house in favor of negotiations with friendlier right-wing lawmakers in the Senate. “They only dealt with the budget with us when they were leaning against the wall,” said a senior RN official.
The stratagems Barnier used in the Brexit negotiations were simply not applicable to the French political arena, said Thierry Chopin, a visiting professor at the College of Europe. During the five-year tussle, Barnier was a consensual figure who worked hard to win and retain the support of member states, which gave him legitimacy with British officials.
“The Brexit model worked well since Barnier’s job was to defend the common position and strengthen unity, but in France neither (party) maintains collective discipline,” he added. “There is no culture of compromise or negotiation as there is at the EU level.”
Barnier was not helped by the fact that he came from a small party that secured just 47 seats in the recent election, and had to preside over an awkward power-sharing deal with Macron’s centrist Ensemble pour la République (EPR) party. Yet instead of trying to unite that base, Barnier refused to call it a “coalition” – instead coining the looser term “common core” with which he did not negotiate a joint action plan.
Tensions quickly emerged between the two pro-Barnier factions, epitomized by a public spat between their leaders, former prime minister Gabriel Attal of the EPR and Laurent Wauquiez of the LR, both of whom have presidential ambitions. Barnier did not intervene and said he did not want to act as the head of the so-called majority, people close to him said.
In the leadership vacuum, EPR and LR began loudly demanding changes to their own prime minister’s budget. Attal criticized the proposed reversal of some of the president’s long-standing economic policies, such as not raising taxes, while Wauquiez lobbied against the pension freeze. “The prime minister did not get all the support he needed from his own camp,” Louwagie said.
In the end, Barnier drafted the budget knowing that he would probably have to resort to clause 49.3 of the constitution to pass it since he did not have a majority in parliament.
Seen by critics as an undemocratic tool that bypasses parliament, Barnier decided early on not to use it, unlike previous Macron prime ministers, to let the debate flow. But with 49.3 almost inevitable, MPs knew the debates and amendments were little more than political theater as the government would decide what would remain in the budget.
The real test of Barnier’s negotiating skills came at home ahead of Monday’s vote on the first part of the budget, which covers social security spending. The RN listed a number of irritants he wants to see changed, such as higher electricity taxes and lower drug charges. When Barnier finally caved in, he refused to give credit to the RN, which gave Le Pen his back.
She gave him an ultimatum to respond to her other demands before Monday’s vote.
Just hours before the vote, Le Pen and Barnier spoke multiple times by phone, people familiar with the matter said. He made another concession by mid-day on medication, giving her public recognition in a statement, but then drew the line by giving her the most expensive one, namely lifting the temporary freeze on pension increases.
Le Pen was adamant. “We will vote for a vote of no confidence. The French have nothing to fear,” she said.
Patriat, a veteran senator who backs the government, admitted he had misinterpreted Le Pen’s intentions and suggested Barnier had similarly miscalculated. “Even when the prime minister capitulated to many of her demands, it had no effect,” he complained. “I never thought it would go this far.”
