By Francesca Hangeior

Thousands of left-wing demonstrators on Saturday took to the streets across France to protest against the nomination of the centre-right Michel Barnier as prime minister and denounce President Emmanuel Macron’s “power grab”.

Protests took place in Paris as well as other cities including Nantes in the west, Nice and Marseille in the south and Strasbourg in the east.

Macron on Thursday appointed Barnier, a 73-year-old former foreign minister who acted as the European Union’s Brexit negotiator, as prime minister, seeking to move forward after July snap elections in which his centrist alliance lost its relative majority in parliament.

Barnier said on Friday night that he was open to naming ministers of all political stripes, including “people from the left”.

But a left-wing coalition, which emerged as France’s largest force after the elections, although without enough seats for an overall majority, has greeted Macron’s appointment of Barnier with dismay.

On Saturday, many demonstrators directed their anger at Macron and some called on him to resign.

“The Fifth Republic is collapsing,” said protester Manon Bonijol. “Expressing one’s vote will be useless as long as Macron is in power,” added the 21-year-old.

Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose France Unbowed party (LFI) and allies belong to the left-wing bloc, has charged that the election had been “stolen from the French” and called on French people to take to the streets.

On Saturday, he urged supporters to prepare for battle. “There will be no pause,” he vowed.

“Democracy isn’t just the art of accepting that you’ve won, it’s also the humility of accepting that you’ve lost,” Melenchon said from a truck at the Paris protest.

Abel Couaillier, a 20-year-old student, said he was stunned by the appointment of Barnier, whom he called an “old elephant”.

“I am still young, I want to believe that we can change things and I will continue to go and vote,” added Couaillier.
The left-wing alliance wanted Lucie Castets, a 37-year-old economist, to become prime minister, but Macron quashed the idea, arguing that she would not survive a confidence vote in the hung parliament.

The EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has become France’s new prime minister, the French president’s office says, which ends two months of stalemate after inconclusive parliamentary elections.

In a statement on Thursday, the Élysée Palace said: “The President of the Republic has appointed Michel Barnier as Prime Minister. He has to form a united government to serve the country and the French people.”

The statement added that Barnier’s appointment comes after “an unprecedented cycle of consultations” in order to ensure a stable government.

The 73-year-old staunch Europhile, is a member of the Republicans party which represents the traditional right. He is best known on the international stage for his mediating role for the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.

Barnier has held various ministerial positions in France, including roles as foreign, agriculture and environment ministers. He served twice as a European commissioner as well as an adviser to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. In 2021, Barnier announced his bid for presidential elections but failed to garner enough support within his party. He has served in French and European politics

Macron accepted the resignation of former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and his government in July, after his centrist party was defeated in the second round of France’s snap parliamentary election. The president has since faced calls from across the political sectors to appoint a new PM. Last week, Macron told journalists during a trip to Serbia he was “making all the necessary efforts” to finalize a name.

“I will have the opportunity in a few days, in just a few weeks, to state the major legislative priorities and proposals on behalf of the new government before parliament. It will be a question of responding, as much as we can, to the challenges, to the anger, as you mentioned, to the suffering, to the feeling of abandonment, of injustice that runs through our cities, our neighborhoods and our countryside far too much,” Barnier said, speaking alongside Attal during the transfer of power at Hotel Matignon, the prime minister’s office in Paris.

Attal congratulated Barnier in presence of family members and lawmakers.

“The French know you. They know that you are a great local elected official,” said Attal, praising Barnier’s “almost unmatched experience of serving the state in various international and European functions.”

But he did not hide his frustration that his tenure came to such an abrupt end.

“Eight months is too short,” Attal said, warning that the country’s politics is suffering, “but recovery is possible.”

Barnier’s prospects for forming a stable government are unclear. Currently, France’s far-right National Rally (RN) is one of the largest parties in parliament following the election in early July. It has previously suggested it could be open to working with Barnier and would not immediately veto him.

Still, RN politician Laurent Jacobelli spoke disparagingly of Barnier, telling French television network TF1: “They are taking out of mothballs those who have governed France for 40 years.”

Barnier served as the chief negotiator during the UK’s exit from the European Union. The lengthy talks between London and Brussels ran from 2016 to 2021 and he is known among Brexiteers in the UK for driving a hard bargain.

Barnier was born in January 1951 in a suburb of the Alpine city of Grenoble, he was first elected to parliament at the age of 27.

The leaders of France’s main far-right and far-left political parties had condemned the appointment of Barnier following the announcement on Thursday.

The sentencing of Donald Trump in his New York hush money trial was delayed on Friday until after November’s presidential election, marking a win for the Republican as he battles Democrat Kamala Harris in the closely contested race.

The former president had been scheduled to be sentenced on September 18 for falsifying business records in a scheme to silence a porn star’s politically damaging story.

However, Judge Juan Merchan postponed it to November 26 — well past the November 5 election, as requested by Trump’s lawyers.

“This is not a decision this Court makes lightly, but it is the decision that, in this Court’s view, best advances the interests of justice,” he wrote in his decision.

Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, preventing her from disclosing an alleged sexual encounter on the eve of the 2016 election.
He was originally scheduled to be sentenced on 11 July.
However, this was delayed after the US Supreme Court ruled that a former president has broad immunity from criminal prosecutions.
Trump’s lawyers have asked for his New York conviction to be dismissed following the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Merchan stated he would rule on the dismissal motion on 12 November.

The postponement comes as the already extraordinary White House race enters a newly tense phase, with Harris and Trump set to hold their first televised debate next Tuesday.

Hours before the ruling, instead of addressing key voter issues like immigration or the economy, Trump was in New York delivering rambling remarks about his myriad legal problems as he denied multiple women’s accusations of sexual harassment or assault.

“This is not the kind of publicity you like,” Trump acknowledged from the lobby of Trump Tower, even as he spent an hour, unprompted, reminding voters of his extensive legal troubles and accusations of rape and sexual assault by various women, including writer E. Jean Carroll.

The legal drama unfolded on the day the first mail-in ballots of the election were due to be distributed.

The battleground state of North Carolina was scheduled to mail out around 130,000 absentee voting slips, marking the symbolic start of a nationwide process that, during the bitter 2020 election, saw 155 million Americans cast ballots.

However, a state appeals court halted the process after a last-minute lawsuit by independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is seeking to have his name removed from ballots. The fringe candidate from America’s most famous political family has dropped out and endorsed Trump.

North Carolina is among a handful of swing states that Harris and Trump have been crisscrossing as they embark on the most intense phase of an election expected to be decided by razor-thin margins.

Other states will soon follow in mailing out initial batches of ballots, and early in-person voting begins across 47 states as soon as September 20.

Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks later on Friday in North Carolina.

AFP