Who is Michel Barnier, the new French Prime Minister?

The new French Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, comes from a long political career in France, where over the years, under different governments and different presidents, he has held numerous ministerial positions. But it is within the community institutions and in particular as ‘Monsieur Brexit’ that he has established himself as a leading political figure, managing to unravel a tangle that seemed inextricable.

Minister of the Environment with Mitterrand (1993), head of European Affairs (1995) and Foreign Affairs (2004) with Chirac, the 73-year-old native of La Tronche, in Isère, where he was born on 9 January 1951 – the oldest prime minister appointed in France, who succeeds the youngest – was also Sarkozy’s minister, at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (2007). A career that saw him at a young age achieve the record of the youngest deputy elected in France, in 1978, a record he held for nearly two decades.

Convinced Gaullist, strongly pro-European – “I have always thought that one could be a patriot and a European at the same time”, he loves to repeat – in 1999 he was appointed European Commissioner for Regional Policies in Brussels, in 2010 for the Internal Market and Services. Finally, in 2016 he was given the task of negotiating Brexit. A hard worker, considered very serious in his commitment, he is described as a man of energy, whose secret lies in daily sports practice and a healthy diet. Little inclined to media attention – “The Invisible Man of French Politics”describes him Laurent Fabius, his rival at the Quai D’Orsay – he explains that he prefers “being effective to being media-oriented”.

On Brexit, the watchword was to not let “emotion or passion” show and to ensure transparency, with continuous reporting to member states on the progress of negotiations. “Barnier is a gentleman, but a tough gentleman,” commented Boris Johnson, speaking of his firmness in negotiations. While his method is praised by those around him, opinions on him across the Channel have not been as flattering, already in his capacity as Commissioner for Internal Affairs: “The most dangerous man in Europe” some British media called him.

In 2021, the representative of Les Républicains tries his luck in the Republican primaries for the 2022 presidential election, an attempt that sees him take firmer positions on immigration and sovereignty, with a turn to the right that confuses some of his historical supporters. Finally, he fails to prevail over Valérie Pecresse. A few years later, he is ready to resume his place on the national scene.