57 rue de Varenne, Hôtel de Matignon. This is the address of the official residence of the French Prime Minister, just one kilometer from the National Assembly, where Michel Barnier delivered his first general policy speech on Tuesday. Sometimes politicians and journalists speak of “Matignon’s hell” to designate this position which, in the French system, serves as an intermediary between the president and the parliamentary chamber, often confronted with at least one of the two.
In its most common configuration, the Prime Minister relies on the parliamentary majority to govern and implement the political vision of the head of state. Sometimes in good harmony, other times in permanent tension, even when both belong to the same political force. Some prime ministers resign themselves to being treated by presidents as simple assistants – Nicolas Sarkozy described François Fillon as “my collaborator” –. Others have to live with ambitious heads of government who openly aspire to the presidency, as was the case with François Hollande and Manuel Valls.
When the prime minister does not have an absolute majority, his task is much more difficult, forced to seek allies among his rivals or to govern by decree. This was the case in the last legislature of Élisabeth Borne, responsible for implementing unpopular measures such as the immigration law or pension reform in a hostile Assembly.
Michel Barnier’s situation is even more precarious. “The legislative elections at the beginning of July gave way to a National Assembly divided like never before since 1958. No political party has an absolute majority,” he admitted this Tuesday during his first appearance before the National Assembly, in a context marked by protests from certain deputies of the progressive coalition New Popular Front, leading force of the parliamentary arc. “But the French would not forgive us if we stood still for the next three years and demanded urgent answers to some of the main demands. »
In the French political system, unlike the Spanish system, the election of the head of government does not depend on an investiture session, but is designated directly by the president. The Prime Minister can request a vote of confidence, but this is not obligatory and Michel Barnier had confirmed that it would not be subject to the approval of the Assembly. However, when taking office, it is common for him to deliver a general policy speech before the lower house of Parliament to define the lines of action that the Executive intends to take and, therefore, present the main desired reforms. , with a calendar. and a list of priorities.
It is a delicate exercise with the current balance of power, in which Parliament has a decisive influence on the Executive and the Head of State, whereas in France, what is normal is the opposite. . Barnier promised to “listen to and respect each of the deputies, even if this respect is not always reciprocal”.
The Prime Minister defined his five priority areas: purchasing power, public services – with education and health in mind – security, immigration and “fraternity”.
Minority in the Assembly
Even if we cannot speak of cohabitation, Barnier (Les Républicains) does not belong to the president’s party (Renaissance) and only benefits from the direct support of the 47 deputies of his party, out of the 577 in the Assembly. .
In the last elections, the conservatives of Los Republicanos (LR) obtained less than 5% of the votes and also refused to be part of the Republican front. The alliance between his party and the center-right presidential coalition allows Barnier to claim a base, according to the Prime Minister himself, “of around 220 or 230 deputies”, far from the absolute majority (289), but higher in number. the left bloc and the far right.
To strengthen this support, Barnier designed a government which is a continuation of previous ones, but accentuates the presence of right-wing ministers and minimizes center-left personalities, who were present in previous executives under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron. Furthermore, his party has a majority in the Senate, where the sum of LR and centrist senators reaches 229 seats (out of 348).
It is no coincidence that the new executive includes an unusual number of former senators and it is predictable that the parliamentary journey of many legislative texts will be organized in such a way that the Senate can dominate their drafting. But in France as in Spain, it is the lower house which has the last word.
The texts which deal with the budget can be approved by decree calling on article 49.3 of the Constitution. For the rest, the former chief negotiator of the European Union for Brexit will have to obtain the support of the other parties. In the short term, he will also have to ensure that the two other large blocs in the Assembly (left and far right) do not unite to vote together on a motion of censure.
Immigration, a central issue
In this context, the general policy declaration takes on particular importance. All parties were attentive to her, notably that of the far right Marine Le Pen, who that Macron placed in the position of arbiter on the future of the Government with the appointment of Barnier. MPs from the Lepéniste party, National Group, are decisive in a possible motion of censure – legislators from the New Popular Front have announced that they will present one in the coming days.
Nods from Barnier to the far right were therefore expected, particularly on immigration, a subject on which Barnier has adopted an increasingly harsh tone in recent years. “Michel Barnier seems to have made the same observation as us on immigration,” declared Marine Le Pen, shortly after the announcement of the new Prime Minister.
This Tuesday, Barnier addressed the issue in the last part of his speech, ensuring that it is a subject that he wants to approach “with pragmatism”. He defended the execution of the expulsion orders already issued and the extension of the mandatory detention period for those ordered to leave the country. “More than 100,000 arrests have been issued in this country, but tens of thousands of irregular migrants remain unduly on our territory,” he declared, believing that France “no longer satisfactorily controls its migration policy” .
The appointment of the new Minister of the Interior had already sent a first message in this direction. Its new owner, Bruno Retailleau, uses rhetoric very close to that of the far right and repeated on several occasions, before coming to power, his intention to eliminate medical aid from the State, which organizes the current universal health system in France. The minister hopes to modify it through new legislation, replacing it with emergency medical aid for migrants in an irregular administrative situation, restricting their access to the system, even if this change arouses rejection – among others – of the whole of the health sector. .
“Immigration is not an opportunity,” Retailleau declared Sunday during a television interview, triggering a major controversy. “Our culture is Judeo-Christian. (…) How do you plan to integrate young people who doubt it, who are told that France is not nice, that it is guilty of all crimes”, insisted the minister, who also calls for the holding a referendum? on immigration.
Furthermore, Retailleau, like several of the new ministers in the Barnier government, Catholic and very conservative, has a long history of voting against social advances: homosexual marriage, the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution or even the ” care of unauthorized minors”. questioning their gender.
Counterweight
On the other hand, the former Macronist Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and the centrist deputies seek to position themselves as a counterweight to avoid an excessive drift towards the right. In this case, the government’s policy could end up fracturing the central bloc which is already starting to think about its future before the presidential elections of 2027 and which has lost several deputies from its left wing, disappointed by the leadership of the president and the new executive . . A particularly sensitive subject in the French Parliament, where electoral discipline is much less strict than in the Spanish Parliament. For now, Attal has promised these deputies to demand guarantees from Michel Barnier that “there will be no turning back on PMA, abortion or LGBT rights”. The Prime Minister alluded to this issue, assuring that these rights will not be affected.
Furthermore, other important files are waiting on the Prime Minister’s desk. One of them is New Caledonia, where violent protests and road blockades have continued for months. Another problem is that of public debt and taxation. The question of a possible increase in taxes, raised by the Prime Minister to consolidate public finances, was also received with hostility by the centrists.
In this sense, Michel Barnier declared on Tuesday that he considered that the situation “requires today a specific effort, limited in time, a shared effort in favor of tax justice”. “This distribution of efforts will lead us to ask large and very large companies which obtain significant advantages to participate in the collective recovery of finances,” he added.
Barnier also announced his desire to ask for “an exceptional contribution from the richest French people”. “The real sword of Damocles is not the one that weighs on my government, but the one that weighs on the French: the budgetary debt,” declared the new Prime Minister.
At the same time, he affirmed that purchasing power will be one of the axes of his government and announced the call for negotiations with social actors to “consider fair modifications to the law on pension reform”. The same day, thousands of people demonstrated in several cities, called by different unions to guarantee that the government “responded to social needs”.
Finally, on the international side, the new French Prime Minister reaffirmed his “solidarity with the Ukrainian people” and with “all the hostages”. [en manos de Hamás] whose release we demand, including that of our compatriots. “We also think of all the Palestinian civilian victims,” he said, calling for an immediate ceasefire. “The key to lasting peace and stability in this region lies in the two-state solution,” he concluded.
