Jędrzej Bielecki: Macron dances to Marine Le Pen
Emmanuel Macron has chosen Michel Barnier as his candidate for Prime Minister of France. The president has finally found a politician who can support, or at least consider, Marine Le Pen. Only at this price will the new government survive. But this is a very dangerous strategy.
Barnier’s task was political. On the one hand, he had to build a consensus among the 27 EU countries in order to have a uniform and strong negotiating mandate, and on the other hand, he had to convince the British, not alienate them. He had to negotiate the best possible deal for the EU, but in such a way that the other side would not feel humiliated. Because the EU wanted to build healthy and friendly relations with Britain for decades to come.
Michel Barnier – open to change and learning new things
The handsome Barnier, at 190cm tall, with an impeccably athletic body (he was a ski instructor in his youth) and a serious-looking grey hair, may seem like an old-school French politician. Yet in Brussels he proved that he was surprisingly open to change and learning new things.
For example, when, while still Commissioner for the Internal Market and Financial Services, he decided to learn English practically from scratch. The French daily Le Monde anonymously quotes people who know Barnier well as fearing that, given his absence from French politics in recent years, the new prime minister may not appreciate how brutal French political life is today. The coming weeks and months will show whether his negotiating skills, openness to change and the flexibility developed over decades of experience in politics will be enough to create a stable cabinet.