A generationA restaurant in the bustling west of Paris, a fan of the former Brexit negotiator of the European Union, Michel Barnier, Squeezed to listen to their hero, cheering for the gentle 70-year-old man, who turned from an outsider into a potential darling in the contest to select the presidential candidate for the right-wing Republican Party.
Barnier was a surprise in the unpredictable pre-election season in France. For nearly 50 years, he has been known as a centrist, free-thinking neo-Charles de Gaulle in French right-wing politics and devoted himself to the cause of Europe. But as the right-wing party prepares to decide its candidate early next month, he significantly strengthened his position, which surprised observers.
“There are two conditions for improvement in France: security and immigration,” Barnier said solemnly, winning applause. “There are tensions and there is a risk of confrontation-we must restore calm and restore peace to people’s lives. For this, we need electric shocks in terms of security and immigration.”
He said that it was Christmas Eve last year, a few hours after the signing of the post-Brexit agreement with the United Kingdom. When he announced that he missed France and wanted to be “useful” in French politics, he began to consider running for the French president to defeat Emmanuel. Macron and reunited the divided society of France.
Barnier claims that unregulated immigration from outside the European Union is weakening France’s sense of identity. He believes that the Brexit referendum shows how dangerous it is to allow social division to worsen. He promised that France will suspend non-European immigration for three to five years, and that even family members will be prevented from joining immigration, and called on France to regain its legal sovereignty from the European Court of Justice. During this immigration suspension, he said: “We will take measures to review all invalid procedures to make them more stringent and fair.”
His critics said that it is not yet clear how France, as a member of the European Union’s Schengen Free Movement Zone, would implement this measure without violating EU law.The left says he is chasing the extreme right Marina Le Pen And another potential candidate, a far-right TV expert Eric ZemoBarnier considered these criticisms “sad” and said that he just wanted to improve the way things work.
The effort to select presidential candidates for Nicolas Sarkozy’s traditional right-wing party Les Républicains is undoubtedly defined by strong language about immigration and identity.
Not only Barnier, but his other main competitors-former Sarkozy ministers Valerie Pecres and Xavier Bertrand-have shed their centrist past in order to attract more conservative parties. member. Nearly 150,000 party members will decide the candidates in an internal vote, and the winner will be announced on December 4. The results are unpredictable. Since September, 69,000 people have joined or rejoined the party, and there is no information on how they voted.
But in the final analysis, this is a personality contest, and this is where Barnier creates motivation and surprises. Initially considered by some to be too prosaic, he aroused a group of followers who believed that he was a reliable old politician who could end the struggle within the party and understand the French provinces. A climber and hiker from the Alps, who established his own business in the local village politics, walked in the ancient forest, reminding people that he loves trees. “If you don’t love trees, you can’t enter politics or become president,” he told Paris Games recently. At the age of 22, he was elected as the local councillor of Savoy for the first time. In 1978, he was only 27 years old and entered the parliament. He has served as government minister four times and a member of the European Commission twice. His supporters point out that since the age of 22, he has won every direct vote he represents.
“I have never been a technocrat, I have always been a politician,” Barnier said in Paris. As the former Minister of the Environment and the co-organizer of the 1992 Winter Olympics, he knew that climate change was a concern for right-wing rural voters and personalised it. “I come from a mountainous area, where a third of the economy depends on snow,” he applauded to the crowd in the restaurant. He is known for his enthusiasm for spreadsheets and archives, but people still often see him holding an iconic briefing folder.
Antoinette, 74, a retired Parisian parliamentary attaché, said: “When we were in our 20s, I saw him eating lunch in parliament-usually sausages-he just appeared friendly and friendly. Decent.”
Francis Szpiner, Mayor of the 16th Century Republican Leagueday The Paris district borrowed the campaign label of former Socialist President François Mitterrand, calling Barnier a “quiet force.”
Barnier’s main competitors Bertrand and Pécresse are higher than him in the polls of ordinary voters. But after Macron’s victory in 2017, both left the Republican Party to work on their own personal political projects. Barnier stayed-the party members noticed this. “In politics, loyalty is a virtue,” Spiner said.
At Barnier’s modern open campaign headquarters near the Elysee Palace, a senior member of his team said: “The next two weeks will be approximately Michel Barnier Go out to meet the party members and show them how he defeated Emmanuel Macron next spring: through his position and the fact that he will govern in a different way. “
Barnier promised to serve as president for only one term. He said that he will contrast with Macron’s top-down “lonely” decision-making method that he believes, but cooperate with different parts of society and local governments.
Olivier Rouquan of the Center for Administration and Political Science of the University of Paris said of his party membership: “This is an older voter. They know Barnier and he is similar to them in many ways. He has learned from him. The European era in Brussels came to one side because a part of this voter was very concerned about security and immigration issues. That’s why he took that round. All the candidates did the same thing. Barnier did not want to be accused of being too moderate. But He made a 180-degree change and proposed to amend the immigration constitution. Will it work? We don’t know.”
Colette, 75, a former hospital scientist and lifelong party member, said: “Frankly, I think he is very stable and reassuring, and now this is the most important thing.”
