Macron’s new government on the ropes 12 hours after being unveiled

Fury erupts from Left parties as French prime minister Michel Barnier announces cabinet full of mainstream conservatives and Macron allies,

Emmanuel Macron’s new government faces no-confidence votes less than 12 hours after it was unveiled
On Saturday night Michel Barnier, the French prime minister, unveiled his new centre-Right cabinet, awarding plum posts such as interior and finance ministers to mainstream conservatives and Macron allies, provoking anger from the opposition and threats to topple the government.
Minutes after the line-up was announced, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the radical Left party France Unbowed (LFI), described the cabinet as a familiar cast of players from a “disaster movie” that the country has seen before.
“We need to get rid of it as soon as possible,” he said on X.
 Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-Right National Rally (RN), was also quick to denounce the new government, which excludes deputies from both the Leftist bloc the New Popular Front (NFP) and the RN. The NFP includes France Unbowed, Socialists, Greens and the Communists.
“This ‘new’ government signals the return of Macronism through the back door,” Mr Bardella said.
“What the French people have twice democratically rejected cannot be allowed to return through pitiful party politics and political calculations. It is therefore a government with no future.”
François Hollande, a former president and Socialist deputy within the NFP, also backed a motion of no-confidence, calling it “the right solution” during an interview with local French news site France Bleu Limousin on Sunday morning. The Left has been almost completely shut out of the administration, despite forming an alliance that won the highest number of seats.
“Michel Barnier’s government is a fragile government,” Mr Hollande said, adding that it depended on the RN for survival and there were no heavyweights in the cabinet.
Mr Barnier’s long-awaited cabinet comes nearly three months after a snap general election delivered a hung parliament. Though the Leftist coalition the NFP won the most seats, it failed to secure an overall majority.
In a sign that the new government will take a hardline approach to immigration, Mr Barnier awarded the post of minister of the interior to fellow Republican Bruno Retailleau, described in the French press as a symbol of the conservative far-Right. The senator from Vendée was vocally opposed to same-sex marriage, and voted against the constitutionalisation of abortion earlier in 2024.
Mr Retailleau’s approach to immigration also aligns closely with the far-Right. He has pushed for French natives to be given priority access to social benefits, and for reducing the scope of emergency medical aid to undocumented people.
Migrant aid and immigration advocates expressed alarm at Mr Retailleau’s appointment, who has vowed order, authority and firmness to tackle the issue.
“He equates immigration with delinquency,” Fanélie Carrey-Conte, general secretary of migrant and refugee association Cimade, told Le Monde. “We fear a new political and legislative sequence of stigmatisation and attacks on migrants’ rights.”