PARIS — Thousands of protesters took to the streets across France on Saturday, responding to a call from the leader of a far-left party who criticized the president’s appointment of conservative Prime Minister Michel Barnier as a “power grab.”
The protests were a direct protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s decision not to choose a far-left prime minister following deeply divisive and polarizing results in July’s parliamentary elections. Authorities did not record any large turnout across the country.
The left, particularly the Unbowed France party, sees Barnier’s conservative record as a repudiation of voters’ will and an exacerbation of an already tense political situation in the EU’s second-largest economy. Echoing fiery rhetoric in recent days from Unbowed France leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, demonstrators on Saturday denounced Barnier’s appointment as a repudiation of democracy.
Tensions rose in Paris as protesters gathered at the Place de la Bastille and police prepared for possible clashes, some holding signs reading “Where is my polling station?”
Leading the march through Paris, Mélenchon gave an impassioned speech declaring, “The French people are rebelling. They have entered into revolution.”
“There will be no pause, no truce. We call for a long war,” he added.
“People have been ignored,” a rally speaker told the crowd in the southwestern city of Montauban. Other protests were held in about 150 locations across the country.
As Barnier met health workers at Paris’ Necker hospital on his first official visit as prime minister, opponents say the unrest in the streets is shaping the future of his government.
As he works to form his cabinet, Barnier has signalled his determination to listen to people’s concerns, particularly about France’s public services.
Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right Rally National party, warned that Barnier was also “being watched” by his party. Speaking at the Châlons-en-Champagne fair, Bardella called on the prime minister to include his party’s priorities on the agenda, particularly on national security and immigration.
At 73, Barnier is the oldest of the 26 prime ministers to have served during France’s modern Fifth Republic. He succeeds Gabriel Attal, who was 34 when he took over just eight months ago as the youngest prime minister.
Attal was forced to resign after Macron’s centrist government performed poorly in July parliamentary elections that Macron had hoped would give him a clear mandate but which ended up leaving parliament in limbo, the president without his parliamentary majority and his government in disarray.
Attal was also France’s first openly gay prime minister. French media and some of Macron’s opponents, who immediately criticized Barnier’s appointment, were quick to dig up the fact that the new prime minister was one of the 155 lawmakers who voted against a law decriminalizing homosexuality in 1981 when he was a member of parliament.
Though Barnier has 50 years of political experience, his appointment is no guarantee that the crisis will be resolved. His task is enormous: to form a government that can navigate a divided National Assembly that is deeply divided politically between the far left, the far right and Macron’s weakened centrist bloc. Far from providing clarity, the election results have destabilized the country and Macron’s power base.
The president’s decision to turn to Mr Barnier, a veteran politician with deep ties to the European Union, is seen as an attempt to bring stability to French politics. Mr Barnier, who gained fame as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has faced tough challenges before.
Critics say Macron, elected on a platform of breaking away from the old political system, is now battling the instability he once promised to conquer.
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