Michel Barnier v Rachida Dati: the prize fight for Paris

Times

3 days ago

When Michel Barnier stepped down as the EU's Brexit negotiator in 2021, observers assumed he was planning to retire to his country house in the wooded Sologne region south of Paris.
They were wrong. He kept his main home in the capital's chic 7th arrondissement, where he has provoked an internecine war within his Republicans party by standing in a by-election against Rachida Dati, the tough-talking centre-right culture minister who dreams of becoming mayor of Paris next year.
Dati is livid about what she views as his intrusion in her well-heeled backyard. Barnier does not seem to care. He has his eyes on bigger things. At the age of 74, he believes that his 'destiny' may be to unite a fractured, indebted, befuddled nation by becoming president.
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Barnier has pointedly refused to rule out entering the race to succeed President Macron in 2027 and, in the meantime, he is seeking to become an MP once more, 47 years after he first sat in the National Assembly.
This week the Republicans named him as the candidate for an autumn by-election in a Parisian constituency considered so safe that 'you don't have to mess around handing out leaflets in markets', according to a senior member of the movement.
Barnier's victory is a foregone conclusion, or at least it would be if Dati, 59, had not also decided to stand in the by-election.
The confrontation between Dati, the child of north African immigrants who has fought her way up the political ladder, and Barnier, an old-school grandee who joined the movement as a teenager, has left political observers agog.
On one side is Dati, who is often described as a glamorous French answer to President Trump. On the other is a painstakingly courteous, slightly antiquated politician who embodies everything Trump is not.
Barnier's claim to the seat is based upon his residency in the constituency, which incorporates the 7th arrondissement, home to the Musée d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower.
Dati, however, views him as an outsider. Not only does she too have a flat in the arrondissement but she is also the district mayor. She accused Barnier of a 'lack of respect'.
Republican leaders are worried that the war might not only cost them a safe seat in parliament, by splitting their vote, but also harm the party's standing in the country — just as it is starting to emerge from years in the electoral desert.
Dati is convinced that Barnier wants to thwart her lifetime goal of becoming mayor of Paris in next year's council elections. Having lost to Anne Hidalgo, the socialist incumbent, six years ago, she is the pollsters' favourite. However, she remains a divisive figure who angered some in the party by joining Macron's centrist government in 2024.
The announcement last week that judges are sending her for trial on corruption charges was a further blow, although she insists she is innocent. The suspicion in the Dati camp is that Barnier wants to push her aside in a show of force that would cement his presidential credentials. Some of her supporters also suspect that if the presidency proves out of reach for him, he may be tempted to stand as mayor of Paris instead.
'This [by-election] cannot be used to carry Michel Barnier's presidential ambitions,' said Dati. Suggesting that he was a pawn in a bigger game, she said he was 'being pushed by those who want to stop me winning Paris'.
Barnier retorted: 'I'm too old to be manipulated.' He sought to portray himself as a unifying figure on the centre right and added that he was 'determined and humble'.
Barnier said he had no intention of standing as mayor of Paris, suggesting it was the entire country and not just its capital that interested him. 'The moment is so serious that one must be on the bridge,' he said.
In an interview with the TF1 television channel in June, he was asked whether he planned to run for the presidency in 2027. 'If circumstances and destiny mean that I must ask myself the question of whether to be a candidate, I will force myself to respond to three demands: am I up to it, do I have the right projects for France and can I bring people together?' he replied.
He followed the interview with the publication of a book based on conversations with ordinary French people entitled Ce Que J'ai Appris de Vous (What I Learnt From You). In a country that believes its leaders need an intellectual veneer, a foray into literature is a prerequisite for high office.
Barnier is the second most-popular politician in France behind Dominique de Villepin, 71, also a former centre-right prime minister, according to the Ifop polling institute. However, he remains an outsider for 2027, so much so that Ifop did not include him in its list of potential candidates when assessing voting intentions for the presidential election.
His supporters are convinced that he has a chance in a wide open race. Marine Le Pen, 56, the populist-right National Rally leader, is ahead in the polls but has been barred from standing following a corruption conviction against which she is appealing.
Jordan Bardella, 29, her protégé, would be well placed to replace her if she loses the appeal, according to pollsters, but is hampered by his inexperience. On the left, the centre and the centre right, there are plenty of potential runners but no clear favourites.
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Barnier tried to win the Republicans' nomination for the 2022 presidential election but was defeated by Valérie Pécresse, 58, the head of the Paris region council. She polled a pitiful 4.78 per cent to propel the party into the wilderness. At the time, Barnier was written off as a has-been by commentators.
Three years later, however, he was appointed prime minister after Macron's ill-fated decision to call snap parliamentary elections resulted in a hung National Assembly and a political crisis.
Barnier's premiership lasted a mere three months before his minority centre-right government fell in a no-confidence vote in December. The defeat was humiliating. This time, political analysts declared that his career really was over. Now he seeks to prove them wrong again.