French PM Barnier’s shadow follows Macron to Brussels

BRUSSELS — After seven years of micromanagement, French President Emmanuel Macron is being forced to learn how to share power after appointing a prime minister from another political party, conservative leader Michel Barnier — a new reality which applies on domestic affairs and EU files alike.

Both Macron and Barnier were in Brussels Thursday, with the French president attending the European Council meeting while his prime minister headed to the European People’s Party’s (EPP) summit.

Their simultaneous presence is a rare fact: traditionally, either the head of state or the head of government remains in France while the other travels abroad — an unwritten rule which has nonetheless been broken on occasion in recent years.

Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator and a former EU commissioner, is a widely recognized figure in Brussels whose influence could pose a threat to Macron, weakened on the European level after losing control of parliament at home.

Macron, as president, will continue to represent France at European Council meetings. A heavyweight from Macron’s coalition who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly, stressed that only the French president would be present in “meetings which have a purpose.”

Both leaders’ opinions generally align on key European files including nuclear energy, cutting red tape for businesses and opposing the EU-Mercosur trade deal. But they don’t align perfectly on at least one issue that is at the top of the summit’s agenda: migration.

Barnier’s new government intends to crack down on immigration in France, both legal and irregular, as has been indicated by the new hardline conservative Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau. Retailleau has pushed to speed up the implementation of the EU’s “Migration and Asylum Pact” reform of the bloc’s immigration rules and to review Brussels return policies.

The new French government’s rightward shift appears more aligned with an EU-wide turn towards a crackdown on migration. 

Retailleau has said that he would “like to use transit countries to send back people who cannot be deported to their countries of origin,” echoing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s contentious move to open migrant detention centers in Albania. 

Ahead of the summit, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands organized a pre-meeting to discuss migration with the like-minded leaders of Austria, Cyprus, Poland, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Malta and Slovakia, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Macron, like several other EU leaders, did not attend the meeting.

An Elysée adviser dismissed the importance of such informal side meetings, saying that “the day was totally full” and important discussions “take place in the plenary sessions.”

However, such pre-summit side events in the past have been key in overcoming differences or setting directions for discussions.

Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz both appeared marginalized as leaders arrived at the Council building, where many praised or pushed for tougher measures on migration.

Denmark’s social democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she “was really, really pleased that there are now beginning to be other governments in Europe who, like us, can see that we cannot just keep going.” Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, who heads up a coalition with the right and far-right, noted that there’s a “different atmosphere in Europe” on the migration debate.

Scholz, on the other hand, cast doubts on the latest push on migration and stressed that the EU needs “deportations in accordance with European law.” The Elysée adviser also underlined the French presidency’s lack of enthusiasm on return hubs, calling instead for an “orderly discussion [on migration] that respects international and European law.”

Barnier, meanwhile, met with center-right heads of state, government and opposition during the EPP summit, a setting he has frequently attended over the years and to which he is attached, according to one of the prime minister’s aides.

For the EPP, having Barnier is also a way of showing off a renewed influence in France, despite the fact that its French member party, Les Républicains, has repeatedly fared poorly in national elections for nearly a decade. Barnier is a new “EPP prime minister,” a top executive in the European party said, describing his appointment as “fantastic” after “years where we were in a very difficult situation [in France].”

“From a party perspective, Macron is alone and isolated,” the EPP executive added, pointing to the limited number of heads of state or government associated with the centrist Renew group in the European Parliament.

Clea Caulcutt reported from Brussels. Victor Goury-Laffont, Giorgio Leali and Elisa Bertholomey reported from Paris.