Barnier won’t last a year as PM, declares Le Pen
MICHEL BARNIER will not last a year as France’s new prime minister, Marine Le Pen has said just days before the former Brexit negotiator names his government.
Ms Le Pen, the National Rally (RN) leader and a kingmaker in Barnier’s appointment, told her MPs in Paris yesterday that there would be new legislative elections in just 10 months.
She said of Mr Barnier, a member of the centre-Right Republicans: “This is a mandate that I personally want to be as short as possible. I think it can’t last.”
He emerged as President Emmanuel Macron’s surprise choice as prime minister last week after snap elections in July, which left France with a hung parliament.
The choice of Mr Barnier ended nearly two months of deadlock but infuriated the New Popular Front coalition of Left-wing parties, which won the election but fell short of a majority.
Ms Le Pen could collapse Mr Barnier’s precarious government by calling a vote of no confidence in the 73-year-old conservative, whose party won just 5 per cent of votes in the National Assembly elections.
For now, RN says it has the prime minister under “surveillance” and that his government will not make any major decisions without its involvement.
RN won the first round of the snap legislative elections but was prevented from seizing power by electoral pacts that saw establishment parties stand down candidates to keep the hard-Right from government. It still ended the elections as the largest single party.
Ms Le Pen said: “Our great country that is France cannot function like this, cannot be led by a political force that won 5 per cent.
“I am convinced that there will be new legislative elections at the end of these 10 months, and I hope for them.”
Ms Le Pen’s comments were designed to reassure the party faithful that their tacit support of Mr Barnier was temporary.
RN’s reticence was said to be a tactic to cast themselves as responsible politicians unwilling to jeopardise the French economy before budget negotiations, when Paris is under pressure to reduce its deficit.
But it warned it would trigger a vote of no confidence if Mr Barnier moved to raise taxes.
Jordan Bardella, RN’s choice for prime minister, said at the Palais Bourbon: “We have not changed our objectives, or our ambitions. We are preparing the alternative that the country needs.”
He called on the gathered deputies to “cross a new threshold and become an influential opposition” and “to snatch victories everywhere” in the months ahead
Mr Bardella added: “We must remain a constructive opposition whose only compass is the interest of the country and the interest of the French.”
Mr Barnier is likely to come under RN pressure to fulfil two of his promises from his failed campaign to become French president in 2022.
The former EU commissioner called for a moratorium on non-EU immigration for three to five years.
He also demanded a constitutional “shield” that would prevent the European Court of Justice and non-EU European Court of Human Rights overruling French decisions on migration.
Ms Le Pen has long argued against immigration and the supremacy of European courts over national law.
Mr Barnier faces a tricky balancing act in naming his new government to prevent a vote of no confidence, which could come as early as October from the Left when he presents his policy objectives. A trade union chief yesterday described Mr Barnier as the “weakest prime minister” in the history of the Fifth Republic.
Mr Barnier said earlier this week: “I will form the government next week with serious ministers and a government that will be balanced.”
He vowed to “control” immigration with “rigour and tenacity” and “humanity”.
As for the centrist Mr Macron, the president was reported to be willing to accept he had lost control of the government after years characterised by his “Jupiterian” direct rule.
He told a small group of ministers after an election that cost him his majority: “I was a president who governed, I will be a president who presides.”
But other sources suggested Mr Macron was, like Ms Le Pen, simply biding his time and waiting for Mr Barnier to fail.
One anonymous politician told the newspaper Le Figaro: “In the coming weeks, you will see Macron distancing himself from Barnier as if he had the plague.”
The president cannot dissolve the Assembly and call fresh snap elections for a year.
The source said: “He will say to himself, ‘If Barnier fails, I must not be blamed for it.’ And so, we may witness an interminable failure that will suit Macron.
“The latter has made his calculations. He must hold out for a year to regain his power to screw everything up.”