The composition of the new French government, formed by Prime Minister Michel Barnier, was announced on Saturday evening.
“The right-leaning team of 39 is very young and contains few political heavyweights,” Le Figaro commented on Barnier’s choice for the positions of ministers, minister-delegates and secretaries of state.
Antoine Armand, an “ambitious macronist,” as the publication describes him, has been nominated for the key position of Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry.
Former Minister-delegate for European Affairs Jean Noel Barro, also a representative of the presidential party “Renaissance”, will head the Foreign Ministry of France.
The Minister of Armed Forces in the previous government, another “Macronist”, Sebastien Lecornu retained this position in the new composition. According to Le Figaro, this is a “signal of stability” given to the Ministry of Defense “in an increasingly tense geopolitical context”.
The post of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is held by Bruno Retayo, a former senator from the center-right “Republicans”.
On June 9, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and called early legislative elections due to the defeat of the presidential social-liberal Renaissance party in the European Parliament elections, which lost to the National Union.
In the special parliamentary elections on July 7, the pro-presidential coalition “Together” lost to the bloc of leftist parties “New People’s Front”. No political force gained an absolute parliamentary majority.
On July 16, the President accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and his government.
Later, Macron said that he will not appoint a new government of the country until the end of the Paris Olympic Games. At the same time, the Elysee Palace announced that Attal, together with the members of his government, will ensure the implementation of current affairs until the appointment of a new cabinet of ministers.
On September 5, the President appointed former head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former member of the European Commission, representative of the “Republicans” Michel Barnier as the new prime minister of the country, entrusting him with the formation of the government.
