Can French PM Barnier outlive Liz Truss and the lettuce?

PARIS  —  The clock is ticking again for French Prime Minister Michel Barnier. The European Union’s former Brexit chief negotiator is working against the clock to bring political stability to France, fix its woeful finances and restore its reputation as a stable partner.

But unlike the countdown to Brexit, this time the deadline hanging over Barnier could fall at any moment. France’s new premier may even struggle to outlast Liz Truss, the Brexit champion and former British prime minister whose 49-day tenure was so short it was outlived by a head of iceberg lettuce.

Barnier’s new Cabinet, unveiled on Saturday, is getting down to business this week with no assurances about how long they will be in the job given the tenuous situation in France’s fractured legislature.

In a bad omen for the future, the parties in power are already at each other’s throats.

French President Emmanuel Macron held his first Cabinet meeting on Monday, greeting his freshly appointed ministers in the rather frosty Winter Garden room at the Elysée Palace and pledging to “help [them] succeed.”

But in the following hours, the president reportedly complained that the team — a mix of centrists, center-right figures and staunch conservatives — was “not [his] government” and that he “didn’t even get to appoint the ministers from [his] own camp” in messages to several allies.

Macron gave Barnier the impossible, unprecedented task of creating a “national unity” government that would both reflect France’s fractured politics and preserve the president’s pro-business legacy achievements, especially unpopular ones like raising the retirement age. Barnier had to do so without including the far right — whose presence in government would have been met with outrage by many lawmakers — and the left, who felt betrayed by Macron’s decision to name the conservative Barnier as premier and has vowed to bring him down.

So Barnier ended up with a mishmash of centrists and right-leaning figures who don’t always get along. He’ll need all his experience as a skilled negotiator to keep this stable together.

“We are going to have to make compromises,” Barnier said this week in an interview with France 2. “It’s with a culture of compromise that I was able to negotiate the unity of the member countries during the Brexit talks. We have to learn this culture of compromise … to serve the people,” he said.

But the prime minister’s margin for error is dangerously narrow. The government has to submit a slimmed-down budget for 2025, that will go some way toward tackling France’s growing fiscal woes, within days.

And then there’s the far-right elephant in the room. With no majority in parliament, the government depends on the tacit approval of the troops belonging to Macron’s arch-rival Marine Le Pen to stay alive.

At the mercy of Marine Le Pen

The first challenge facing Barnier is surviving a motion of no confidence in the National Assembly. The left-wing New Popular Front coalition, which won the most seats in this summer’s snap election, has already warned it will table one after Barnier’s policy-setting speech expected next week. The measure needs 289 votes to pass.

Barnier’s government theoretically benefits from the support of over 200 MPs from the centrist and conservative blocs, ironically the only two major forces in parliament that lost seats in the election. That’s left them in the uncomfortable position of needing to read the runes on the far-right National Rally to make sure its 126 lawmakers do not to join any effort on the left to bring the government down.

Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, warned on Sunday that the new government was only “transitory” and “the consequence of the quagmire created by the unnatural alliances struck during the parliamentary election.” Far-right lawmakers have warned that they will scrutinize the government’s budget closely and topple the government if it tries to introduce any new tax hikes, which Barnier had reportedly said he was open to.

While none of this bodes well for the prime minister, the far right might yet have an interest in letting Barnier’s government survive —  for a while.

“I’m not a partisan of voting to censure [the government] straight away, it will only add [more] chaos to the chaos,” one National Rally heavyweight, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said.

“We’ll also get branded as [the party] of brutality,” the individual said. That’s a look the National Rally has been trying to shake off in Le Pen’s careful courting of more traditional conservative voters.

According to constitutional expert Benjamin Morel, it’s in the far right’s interest to wait it out.

“They’re in an enviable position right now, why would they want to topple the government? They are the kingmakers, they get public money [as elected officials] and can focus on training their troops,” ahead of the next presidential election, Morel said.

Ultimately doomed

But even Barnier, whose mindset is said to be “serene, determined, combative” according to an aide, knows his days are numbered.

“My mandate is fragile, we are going to do our best,” Barnier said after his new government was unveiled.

While Barnier has made some moves that will likely make the far right happy — including installing hard-line conservative senator Bruno Retailleau as interior minister — he’s only tiptoed around controversial topics like immigration and raising taxes.

Ultimately, the National Rally cannot let the conservative grandee succeed, said Jean-Yves Camus, a specialist of the far right at the Jean Jaurès Foundation. If it does, the party will end up being seen as “the government’s crutch.”

“At some point, National Rally voters will decide Barnier isn’t going far enough … on security and immigration,” Camus said.

Sarah Paillou and Elisa Bertholomey contributed reporting.