From tree-hugger to the Elysée?
Grenoble, Saturday,
In six months, the French will go to the polls to choose their next leader. The odds still favour the incumbent, the terre-à-terre Emmanuel Macron, but today, the BuffPo releases its first 'Election Profile', profiles of some of the most interesting candidates standing in some of the most important elections.
Today's article is about… Michel Barnier!
You perhaps know him as the lead negotiator for Brexit on the EU's side, but, his job now done, he has returned to France and, to the surprise of many, has become one of the big names in the unpredictable pre-election season in France.
Michel Barnier, who has gone from rank outsider to potential favourite in the contest to choose a presidential candidate for the centre-right Republican Party. To get this far, he has downplayed his past as a liberal-minded technocrat, devoted to the European cause, to reinvent himself as a patriot and nationalist determined to protect France's identity against the perils of migration and further European integration.
With this in mind, in 2021 he created a think tank within the Republican party, called "Patriots and Europeans", bringing together around forty like-minded politicians ostensibly to reflect on issues of sovereignty, particularly economic.
Already, Barnier has floated the idea of a moratorium of three to five years on immigration in the European Union and "legal sovereignty" for France, populist moves that both, according to Le Monde, involve questioning the foundations of the European Union.
Barnier puts it this way: "I'm not a federalist. I've never been a federalist. I'm a Gaullist and I'm still on the same track - a patriot and a European."
Barnier comes from the Alpine department of Savoie, where hard work is the rule and reticence regarded as a mark of wisdom. His boyhood home was Albertville, a small, grey industrial city on the way to the ski resorts. A keen mountaineer and hiker, he walks in ancient forests and reminds people he loves trees. "You can't be in politics or become president without loving trees," he recently told Paris Match.
First elected aged 22 as a local councillor, he entered parliament aged only 27 in 1978. He served four times in the government, including as environment minister and twice as an EU commissioner. He never went to the École National D'Administration, France's elite civil service university, instead attending a Parisian business school. He is famous for his devotion to spreadsheets and dossiers, he is often seen with a trademark briefing folder wedged under his arm. His supporters point out that he has won every direct vote he has stood for.
Well known for his penchant for statistics and graphics, he is a convinced European, arguing that by 2050, the EU27 would be the fourth largest economy in the world, after China, India and the US. Oh, and the UK would not feature.
One of his early political successes was bringing the 1992 Winter Olympics to France in his home town of Albertville and he knows climate change is a concern for right-wing rural voters, saying: "I come from a mountain area where one-third of the economy depends on snow".
Francis Szpiner (67), the Republican mayor of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, calls Barnier "the quiet force" Olivier Rouguan. of Paris University, thinks that Barnier has stepped sideways from his European period in Brussels, because a key part of his base is very focused on questions of security and immigration, adding: "All the candidates have done the same. Barnier didn't want to be accused of being too moderate."
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Election Profile