Daily Times

The French presidential palace unveiled a long-awaited new government Saturday dominated by conservatives and centrists. It came more than two months after elections that produced a hung parliament and deepened political divisions as France grapples with growing financial and diplomatic challenges.

French President Emmanuel Macron named a new government led by Prime Minister Michel Barnier Saturday, marked by a shift to the right 11 weeks after an inconclusive parliamentary election.

The first major task for Barnier, appointed just over two weeks ago, will be to submit a 2025 budget plan addressing France’s financial situation, which the prime minister this week called “very serious”.

Conservative Barnier is best known internationally for leading the European Union’s Brexit negotiations with the UK. More recently, he has had the difficult job of submitting a cabinet for Macron’s approval that has the best chance of surviving a no-confidence motion in parliament. Tough talks on the distribution of the 39 cabinet posts continued right up to Saturday’s official announcement, insiders said, with moments of high tension between the president and his prime minister.

Opposition politicians from the left have already announced they will challenge his government with a confidence motion.

In the July election, a left-wing bloc called the New Popular Front (NFP) won the most parliamentary seats of any political bloc, but not enough for an overall majority.

Macron argued that the left would be unable to muster enough support to form a government that would not immediately be brought down in parliament. He turned instead to Barnier to lead a government drawing mostly on parliamentary support from Macron’s allies, as well as from the conservative Republicans (LR) and the centrists groups.

‘Government of the general election losers’

Macron was counting too, on a neutral stance from the far right – but the leader of the National Rally (RN) Jordan Bardella was quick to condemn the composition of the new government.

It marked “a return to Macronism” and so had “no future whatsoever”, he said Saturday.

At the other end of the political spectrum, far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon called the new lineup “a government of the general election losers”.

France, he said, should “get rid” of the government “as soon as possible”, while his party threatened to “increase popular pressure” on the government.

Socialist party chairman Oliver Faure dismissed Barnier’s cabinet as “a reactionary government that gives democracy the finger”.

Among the new faces in key cabinet posts are Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, a centrist, while conservative Bruno Retailleau takes over at the interior ministry.

His portfolio covers immigration and his right-wing credentials have created unease even in Macron’s own camp.

Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, a close Macron ally, has kept his job. The difficult job of submitting a budget plan to parliament next month falls to 33-year-old Antoine Armand, the new finance minister. He has previously served as head of parliament’s economic affairs commission.