Emmanuel Macron has appointed the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, as prime minister of France, as he seeks to put an end to two months of political paralysis after a snap election.

The French president said he had tasked Barnier with forming “a unifying government in the service of the country”.
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The Socialist party leader, Olivier Faure, part of the leftwing coalition that won the highest number of seats in the election, said it was a “denial of democracy” for Macron to appoint a prime minister from the party that came fourth. “We’re entering a crisis of regime,” Faure said.

Barnier was known for almost 50 years in rightwing French politics as a centrist, liberal-minded neo-Gaullist, devoted to the European cause. But in 2021 he stunned observers by lurching to the right and hardening his stance on immigration and security as part of an unsuccessful attempt to become the presidential candidate for the right against Macron in 2022.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/sep/05/michel-barnier-named-prime-minister-france