(BBC News) Veteran French conservative Michel Barnier has taken over as prime minister, almost two months after France’s snap elections ended in political stalemate.
He said France had come to a “serious moment” and he was facing it with humility: “All political forces will have to be respected and listened to, and I mean all.”
President Emmanuel Macron named the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, ending weeks of talks with political parties and potential candidates.
Barnier, 73, arrived at the prime minister’s residence at Hôtel Matignon in Paris on Thursday evening, taking over the role from Gabriel Attal, France’s youngest ever prime minister who has been in office for the past eight months.
Barnier’s immediate task will be to form a government that can survive a National Assembly divided into three big political blocs, with none able to form a clear majority.
But Barnier will need all his political skills to navigate the coming weeks, with the centre-left Socialists already planning to challenge his appointment with a vote of confidence.
He said he would respond in the coming days to the “challenges, the anger, and the sense of being abandoned and of injustice that run through our towns and countryside.”
He promised to tell the truth to the French people about the financial and environmental challenges facing the country, and to work with “all those in good faith” toward great respect and unity.
