President hopes his choice will end weeks of deadlock since snap election, counting on far right not to block appointment.
President Emmanuel Macron has named Michel Barnier, the European Union’s former Brexit negotiator, as France’s new prime minister after more than 50 days of a caretaker government.
Macron held talks with the 73-year-old veteran politician at the Elysee Palace on Thursday, tasking him with forming a new government in the hope of ending weeks of political deadlock in the country that followed snap parliamentary elections.
Barnier succeeds Gabriel Attal, 35, who served only eight months in office.
Macron’s gamble to call the snap parliamentary election in June backfired, with his centrist coalition losing dozens of seats and no party winning an absolute majority.
The left-wing alliance New Popular Front came first, but Macron ruled out asking them to form a government after other parties said they would immediately vote it down.
Macron’s centrist faction and the far right make up the two other major groups in the National Assembly.
Barnier, a right-winger from the Republicans party (LR), has been all but invisible in French politics since failing to win his party’s nomination to challenge Macron for the presidency in 2022.
The former foreign minister and EU commissioner now faces the daunting challenge of trying to push reforms and the 2025 budget through a hung parliament at a time when France is under pressure from the European Commission and bond markets to reduce its deficit.
The appointment follows weeks of intense efforts by Macron and his aides to find a candidate able to build loose groupings of backers in parliament and survive possible attempts by the president’s opponents to stymie efforts to form a new government.
A minister in the outgoing government told the AFP news agency that Barnier is “very popular with right-wing members of parliament without being an irritant on the left”.
Macron appears to be counting on the far-right National Rally (RN) of three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen not to block Barnier’s appointment.
National Rally party leader Jordan Bardella said Barnier would be judged “on evidence” when he addresses parliament.
Greens leader Marine Tondelier countered: “We know in the end who decides. Her name is Marine Le Pen. She is the one to whom Macron has decided to submit.”
Left-wing leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said Macron naming Barnier meant the election had been “stolen from the French”.