Two months after France’s inconclusive snap elections, and just days after Michel Barnier’s appointment as prime minister, the mood among demonstrators in downtown Paris on Saturday was one of rage and despair.
Amid cries of “Macron Out!, Resign Macron!” leftist demonstrators gathered in the autumn sun in their thousands to protest against French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to appoint the veteran conservative prime minister, rather than a candidate from among their ranks.
While falling short of an absolute majority, the left-wing coalition the New Popular Front (NFP) (made up of the Greens, the Socialists, the Communists and the hard-left France Unbowed) won the most votes in the July 7 snap poll.
But Macron refused to appoint their candidate, civil servant and economist Lucie Castets, 37, claiming she would not survive a confidence vote and on Thursday named Barnier, whose Les Républicains party came a distant fourth, as France’s new prime minister.
“I’m so angry,” said Rocio, 59, as demonstrators gathered at Place de la Bastille in central Paris, a focal point of protests and marches.
“The results of the elections have not been respected. The people are fed up. The people want respect,” said the data entry operator, describing France’s polarising and unpopular president as a “monarchist” and a “bankers’ stooge”.
“Macron should clear off for good and show us some respect,” she added, saying that she wanted him to be impeached.
As the crowd began to swell, protesters held aloft a sea of flags and placards denouncing a “stolen election” and “Macron’s power grab”.
Families carried their children on their shoulders and the rally’s organisers led the crowd in a round of “On lâche rien” (We’re not giving up’) as the procession headed off towards Nation in eastern Paris.
Léo accused the president of breaking with tradition by refusing to appoint a prime minister from the party or coalition that came first in the election.
“Normally the prime minister comes from the majority party,” he explained. “But Macron didn’t give a damn, he just did what he wanted.”
Macron’s gamble backfires
Macron announced the surprise parliamentary vote on June 9 in a call for “clarification” from the French electorate after the far right trounced his centrist party in European parliamentary elections.
Many expected the vote to go the way of the European elections, with the far right coming to power for the first time since WWII and National Rally President Jordan Bardella being named prime minister.
So when the far right led a first round of voting on June 30, the New Popular Front and French centrists employed massive tactical voting to block them from taking the reins.
The protesters in Paris were incensed that Macron had repeatedly presented himself as the only barrier against the far right since 2017, when they felt he had simply handed them the keys to power.
“We voted for Macron to block Le Pen – but actually we had a choice between Le Pen and Le Pen,” said Léo, accusing Macron of pandering to the far right on immigration.
The second round of the high-stakes vote on July 7 saw the highest turnout in decades – with votes split between three main blocs but no clear majority, handing the country a hung parliament and throwing France into political turmoil.
The NFP won the most seats while Macron’s Ensemble coalition came in second place – losing 72 seats and its relative majority in the National Assembly.
Despite its third-place finish, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally won a record number of seats – 143 – to become the single largest party in a fragmented parliament.
Macron’s dangerous gamble had backfired: the French electorate had voted for change, the far right made huge gains and the left declared victory.
At first Macron declared that “no-one had won the election”, in a letter that sparked a furore among the left – and asked then prime minister Gabriel Attal to stay on in a caretaker role “to ensure the stability of the country”.
Then he called for a “political truce” during the Olympic Games over the summer. Only in late August did he begin a stream of “consultations” with a series of potential candidates.
Barnier’s policies are ‘incredibly patriarchal’
Macron grappled to find a prime minister who would not undo his highly contested pension reform, which saw the retirement age raised from 62 to 64, and who would not immediately be voted down by rivals.
He sought reassurance in particular from the far-right National Rally on who they might accept, effectively casting Marine Le Pen in the role of kingmaker.
Le Pen vetoed two other contenders for the PM job, former Socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and former Conservative minister Xavier Bertrand, the head of the northern Hauts de France region. But she gave tacit approval to Barnier, saying she would wait for him to outline his policies in parliament to decide whether or not to back him.
The appointment sees France switch from its youngest-ever prime minister – Attal – to the oldest yet.
“Now we’ve got a guy who’s 73 years old,” said Léo at the rally in Paris. “How can he understand the youth?” he said, looking incredulous.” “His policies are incredibly patriarchal. And he doesn’t like minorities and he’s against homosexuals,” he said, referring to the fact that Barnier has twice voted against gay rights.
The incoming PM vowed in a primetime TV interview on Friday night that he had “not much, in common with the theories or ideology of the National Rally” but that he “respected it”, adding that he would take a stronger stance on immigration.
He also said that his government would be open to members of the left and made political overtures towards the NFP by suggesting “more tax justice” while calling for faster growth powered by business.
But this did little to assuage protesters’ anger. Afasaneh, 63, an Iranian who had lived in France for the past 41 years, viewed Barnier “as an extreme right-winger in disguise”.
“He’s just a pawn that Macron chose so he could continue governing,” she said.
But the protesters’ greatest wrath was reserved for the wildly unpopular Macron, with many of them calling for him to be impeached.
Macron knew from the offset that he was going to appoint Barnier,” claimed Pierre, 62, a graphic designer and supporter of the hard-left France Unbowed party.
“He’s so manipulative. Macron talks about the values of the Republic, but he doesn’t even know what the Republic is,” he said. “The whole process was just a sham.”