Two and a half months after the election of a new National Assembly, President Macron appointed the new government on Saturday evening after Prime Minister Michel Barnier had submitted his proposal.
The new foreign minister will be Jean-Noël Barrot. He belongs to the liberal party MoDem which is in alliance with Macron’s center coalition and comes from the post of European minister.
Bruno Retailleau, Barnier’s party colleague from the bourgeois party Les Républicains, will be the new interior minister.
Lecornu continues as defense minister
Sébastien Lecornu continues as defense minister, while the new finance minister will be Antoine Armand. Both belong to Macron’s centrist Renaissance party.
Prime Minister Michel Barnier, since being appointed by Macron just over two weeks ago, has been working to put together a government that the president could approve.
The new government consists of around 30 ministers and deputy ministers. All are new faces, except Defense Minister Lecornu.
Threatening a vote of no confidence
After the election on 7 July, the National Assembly is split into three wings that have problems working together, and none of them has a majority on its own.
The left wing alliance New Folkefront (NFP) was the largest in the election. But Macron refused to appoint the NFP’s candidate for prime minister. Instead, the election thus fell on Barnier, who is loosely linked to Macron’s own center party.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right party, Najsonal Samling (RN), became the largest single party in the election.
Both the left wing and the RN have already protested against the new government and are warning that they will present motions of no confidence against it.
And earlier on Saturday, before Barnier’s new government was ready, several thousand people demonstrated in Paris, Marseille and elsewhere in France against the new government.
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2024-09-22 20:12:50
