The tragedy of Michel Barnier

PARIS — He was supposed to be the man who could pull France back from the brink. Instead, barring a last-minute miracle, Michel Barnier’s brief stint as prime minister will end in a cataclysmic flop that could send shockwaves across Europe.
When he took up his role on Sept. 5, hopes were high that the lanky 73-year-old Gaullist conservative could calm a political storm that was not only tearing France apart but also threatening the eurozone.
Surely this was to be the venerable grandee’s last great hurrah: Having served four times as cabinet minister and twice as European commissioner, Barnier was viewed as a battle-hardened negotiator who could build consensus among the political extremes and pass a budget that would reduce France’s eye-watering deficits.
After all, if he could run rings round the British in Brexit negotiations, he could surely pull off one final legendary coup, assuage fears about the debt bomb, and steady the ship for President Emmanuel Macron.
But it was not to be. Barnier is expected to be ousted in a no-confidence vote on Wednesday after failing to get Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally party to sign off on a slimmed-down budget to wrestle the country’s finances back in line.
After nearly three months of tacit support for the government, the National Rally is now set to join forces with the left-wing New Popular Front coalition and bring the government down, Barnier’s prescription of tax hikes and public spending cuts having proved indigestible.
The downfall is expected to be brutal. If he is booted out, Barnier will become the first prime minister to be ousted since 1962 and will leave his post with his reputation tainted.
“In France, he blundered in a big way,” said Gaspard Gantzer, a former Élysée advisor under former President François Hollande. “I don’t know in what world he thought he would be able to negotiate with the far right, an extremist party.”
From the moment he was appointed it was clear Barnier had been handed an impossible mission, given the intense divisions in French politics.
The prime minister was supported by a mishmash of conservatives and centrist lawmakers, who were quickly at each other’s throats and did not command a majority in parliament.
For a time, however, it looked as if Barnier was hitting his stride. The French press noted the so-called Barnier effect: The elder statesman was embracing his rather plodding style, maintaining a zen-like calm and modestly walking to important appointments.
The prime minister even earned the nickname “Babar” after the famed unflappable elephant from French children’s literature whose clothes were too baggy for him — not unlike Barnier’s flappy jackets.
Barnier prescribed a bitter potion of fiscal prudence and old-fashioned values that appeared to chime with the gloomy mood of the country, exhausted after of weeks of political uncertainty triggered by Macron’s capricious decision to call a snap election in July.
“[The] Barnier effect was a real thing,” said senior conservative party official Pierre-Henri Dumont, who hails from the same party as the PM. “People want a breather from the slim-suited [Macronist] politician. When Barnier became prime minister, you could clearly see the difference between a great servant of the state, and a kid,” Dumont added, in a dismissive reference to Barnier’s predecessor, the 35-year-old Gabriel Attal.
Barnier also appeared able to tame the far right, after the National Rally refrained from immediately toppling his government.
On Tuesday evening, Barnier made one last attempt to woo the far right, refraining from criticizing their tactics in an interview on French television, and instead calling on lawmakers across the board to “show responsibility.”
In retrospect, the halcyon phase in French politics was short-lived. Barnier is now on his way out, and some are saying his super-negotiator reputation may have been, in Gantzer’s words, “a whole lot of bull.”
Benjamin Morel, a prominent constitutional expert and political scientist at Paris Panthéon-Assas University, argued Barnier had wasted his honeymoon period by not using it to negotiate more frankly with Le Pen and “hand her a clear win” to satisfy her voters.
“His management of parliamentary politics was cataclysmic,” Morel said.
Barnier’s track record negotiating the Brexit divorce deal with successive British governments may have helped inflate expectations he would find a way to work with a deeply fractured and fragmented French parliament.
The bête noire of the British Brexiteers had shown undaunted calm during the four years he negotiated a Brexit deal, despite the acrimonious relations with the British conservative government, sticking to his talking points and his famous catchphrase: “The clock is ticking.”
Many found Barnier’s reputation unwarranted, however. JoJo Penn, who was deputy chief of staff to former British Prime Minister Theresa May, said the reality was that Barnier was less significant than other officials when it came to the crunch talks. 
“Barnier seemed to be happy to be seen at key moments but leave the rest to his deputy,” she said.
Should Barnier’s tenure end on Wednesday, his legacy will undoubtedly be tarnished.
He will likely be remembered as having successfully helped prevent the spread of Brexit populism across Europe, only to be defeated by a populist back home.
“Michel Barnier was presented as the great European negotiator,” Morel said. “But frankly I haven’t seen any sign of that.”
Tim Ross contributed to this report.