Although Barnier comes from a rival centre-right party, Les Républicains, Macron set out to find a candidate who could command majority support in the National Assembly and who would not seek to undo the president’s past pro-business reforms.
Barnier said on Thursday he would seek to address the “suffering and sense of abandonment and injustice many people are going through”.
“We’ll need to listen a lot and show respect, between the government and parliament, and with all political forces,” he said.
Macron had called the snap poll after Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally party trounced his ruling coalition in the June European elections.
The new French prime minister, Michel Barnier, left, with President Emmanuel Macron.Credit: AP
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, and part of the leftwing alliance which won the most seats, blasted Barnier’s nomination, saying his camp had been robbed after its election score.
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“It is not the New Popular Front, which came out on top in the election, that will have the prime minister. … The election was therefore stolen from the French people. The message was denied,” he told reported.
Barnier, who 20 years ago served as foreign minister under former President Jacques Chirac, is a staunch pro-European and a career moderate politician, but toughened his discourse considerably during his failed attempt to get the ticket to run for his Republicans party for the presidential election, saying immigration was out of control.
Le Pen, a frontrunner to in the next presidential election, cautiously welcomed the appointment on Thursday despite some in her party criticising Barnier as a “fossilised” remnant of a pre-Macron era.
“Michel Barnier seems at least to meet one of the criteria we’d demanded, which was to have someone who would respect different political forces and be able to speak with the Rassemblement National,” she said. “That will be useful as compromises will be needed to solve the budget situation.”
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