1. At the European Union level, Michel Barnier was European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services from 2010 to 2014 and vice-president of the European People's Party from 2010 to 2015.
35 Facts About Michel Barnier
1. 2.
At the age of 73, Michel Barnier is the oldest person to take office as prime minister under the Fifth Republic.
3.
Michel Barnier has advocated for stricter controls on non-European immigration, expanding prison capacity and the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes.
4.
Michel Jean Barnier was born at La Tronche in the French Alps, into a Gaullist family in 1951.
5.
Michel Barnier's father, Jean Barnier, was a leather and textiles craftsman.
6.
Michel Barnier's mother, Denise Durand, was a practising member of the Christian left, who founded a local chapter of the Ligue contre la violence routiere.
7.
Michel Barnier graduated from the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris in 1972.
8.
Michel Barnier served on the staff of various Gaullist ministers in the 1970s, before being elected in 1978, aged 27, to the National Assembly as deputy for the department of Savoie representing the neo-Gaullists, Rally for the Republic, serving until 1993.
9.
Michel Barnier became the youngest president of the departmental council of Savoie in 1982, following a deal called the Union for Savoie between right-wing and centrist parties in the council.
10.
Michel Barnier first joined the Cabinet as Minister of the Environment following the right's landslide victory in the 1993 legislative election.
11.
Michel Barnier then served as a European Commissioner for Regional Policy in the Prodi Commission from 1999 until 2004.
12.
Michel Barnier subsequently served as Foreign Minister in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's government until June 2005 when Dominique de Villepin replaced him with Philippe Douste-Blazy.
13.
From 2006 until 2015, Michel Barnier was vice-president of the European People's Party.
14.
Michel Barnier worked in 2006 as a special adviser to Jose Manuel Barroso, then President of the European Commission, and presented a report to the Council of Ministers proposing the creation of a European civil-protection force.
15.
Michel Barnier led the UMP list in Ile-de-France for the 2009 European Parliament election.
16.
Michel Barnier stood unsuccessfully for the nomination of the European People's Party to become President of the European Commission in March 2014, losing to Jean-Claude Juncker.
17.
From 2015, Michel Barnier served as an unpaid special adviser to Juncker on defence policy.
18.
On 27 July 2016, Michel Barnier was announced as the European Commission's chief negotiator with the United Kingdom over leaving the European Union, under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union.
19.
From 2019 to 2021, Michel Barnier led the European Commission's Task Force for Relations with the United Kingdom.
20.
Michel Barnier was the main negotiator for the 2020 trade deal talks between the UK and EU, receiving his negotiating mandate from the European Council on 25 February 2020.
21.
In February 2021, Michel Barnier set up a political faction within the Republicans under the name "Patriot and European" in preparation for a possible bid in the 2022 presidential election.
22.
The period between Attal's resignation and Michel Barnier's appointment was the longest period that the French Fifth Republic had spent under a caretaker government.
23.
Michel Barnier is the oldest prime minister in modern French history.
24.
Michel Barnier was faced with a National Assembly divided nearly evenly into three blocs: the leftist New Popular Front with a plurality of seats, Macron's centrist to centre-right Ensemble, and the far-right National Rally.
25.
On 2 December 2024, Michel Barnier invoked article 49.3 of the French Constitution to adopt the Social Security budget for 2025 without submitting it to a parliamentary vote.
26.
Michel Barnier proposed to "immediately stop regularizations, rigorously limit family reunification, reduce the reception of foreign students and the systematic execution of the double penalty".
27.
Michel Barnier proposed expanding prison capacity by 20,000 and imposing mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes.
28.
On economic issues, Michel Barnier has been characterised as close to the neoliberal policies of Emmanuel Macron, including the reduction of taxes and business regulation.
29.
Michel Barnier is regarded as pro-European, as supporting NATO, and as favouring support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
30.
Michel Barnier was described as a "Euro-ecstatic" by Francois Cornut-Gentille, his supporter and colleague in the Republicans.
31.
In 1981, Michel Barnier voted for the abolition of capital punishment, following a number of other right-wing deputies in breaking party instructions not to do so.
32.
Michel Barnier has made few statements on same-sex relations in the years since.
33.
Michel Barnier has been a member of the Sustainability and Legacy Commission of the International Olympic Committee, and of the board of trustees of Friends of Europe, a Brussels-based think tank.
34.
In 1982, Michel Barnier married Isabelle Altmayer, a lawyer; they have three children.
35.
In October 2024, Michel Barnier underwent surgery for a cervical lesion.