A technocratic coup in France

The rise of Michel Barnier exposes the crisis of French democracy.

Source - Spiked 06/09/24

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Whoever you vote for, the technocrats get in. That seems to be the message from French president Emmanuel Macron, who yesterday anointed Michel Barnier, a long-time Eurocrat, as France’s new prime minister.

Until Barnier’s appointment, France had gone 60 days without a prime minister and without a functioning government. This was partly thanks to the ‘Olympic truce’ that had put politics on hold during Paris 2024. But it was mainly because July’s legislative elections had thrown French politics into turmoil. The results produced a hung parliament, with no one party or bloc able to nominate a prime minister who could command the confidence of the National Assembly.

Those elections delivered a one-two punch to the Macron regime. The president’s party, Ensemble, won fewer votes than both the right-populist National Rally (RN) and the leftist coalition, the New Popular Front (NPF). In the end, RN won the popular vote while the NPF won the most seats. The public mood was unmistakable. Voters said a clear ‘Non!’ to Macron and his technocratic rule. And yet, this is precisely what the voters have been given, in the form of arch functionary Michel Barnier.

Beginning his career on the right of French national politics, Barnier has spent the past two and a half decades thoroughly ensconced in the EU. Since 1999, he has had two terms as an unelected European commissioner, a brief stint as an MEP and, most infamously to us Britons, he was the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator. Here he became the scourge of Eurosceptics for his hardline, bad-faith demands, and a pin-up for Remoaner malcontents, who shared his contempt for British democracy. The Guardian this week hails his ‘sensible anoraks, love of spreadsheets and his ever-present briefing dossiers wedged under his arm’.

It’s not hard to see why some on the French left have branded Barnier’s shock appointment a ‘coup’ against democracy. This criticism might have had more weight, however, had the NPF not also tried to propose a technocratic candidate for PM following the elections. Lucie Castets, a largely unknown civil servant and economist, was briefly hailed as the great hope for French socialism. ‘She’s not just someone walking around with an Excel file; she has the values needed to make good use of it’, gushed one Communist senator. Macron vetoed her candidacy last month in the name of ‘institutional stability’.

And what about the anti-establishment populists, RN? Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella seem to have cautiously accepted Barnier as PM, having effectively vetoed two other names Macron was considering – former Socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve (too left-wing) and Hauts-de-France regional president Xavier Bertrand (he once insulted Le Pen).

For the time being at least, Bardella and Le Pen seem to have found a technocrat they can do business with, not least because of Barnier’s more right-wing social views. Back in 2021, when he was vying to become the presidential candidate for the centre-right Républicains, he proposed a total ban on immigration from outside the EU for three to five years.

Still, Barnier remains a technocrat through and through. Should he remain in the Matignon, the real victor here would be Macron. Despite losing the elections decisively, he now has a PM who won’t try to unravel his most controversial and unpopular economic policies. Austerity is safe in Barnier’s hands, as is the raising of the retirement age. What’s more, given France’s large budget deficit, all of its spending plans currently have to be approved by the European Commission. Barnier will be expected to report not only to Macron, but also to his old bosses in Brussels. A technocratic lock has been placed around French politics, which suits the widely despised Macron just fine.

Barnier’s rise is part of a depressing, anti-democratic trend in Europe. All too often, when voters reject the establishment by backing populist parties, the technocrats find a way to frustrate the people’s will. In the Netherlands, despite the decisive victory for hard-right firebrand Geert Wilders in last year’s elections, the government is now led by Dick Schoof, a former civil servant and head of the secret service. Before Giorgia Meloni, Italy was led by a series of unelected, technocratic PMs, from former ECB head Mario Draghi to the formerly obscure law professor, Giuseppe Conte. A study published in 2023 found that the proportion of ‘technocratic’ or ‘apolitical’ government ministers in Europe surged by 50 per cent between 2000 and 2020. Worse still, these technocrats usually occupy the most important offices, like prime minister and finance minister.

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