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PARIS/WAM
French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Michel Barnier, the European Union’s former Brexit negotiator, as prime minister on Thursday. Barnier is tasked with forming a new government, which is likely to end weeks of political deadlock after Macron called a snap election that delivered an unwieldy hung parliament.
Barnier will now have to survive a no-confidence vote in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of the parliament.
A veteran of the recently renamed Republican Right party (LR), Barnier has had a long political career in France and the EU, having served twice as European Commissioner and, between 2016 and 2021, the chief EU negotiator for Brexit.
At 73, he is the oldest prime minister of the Fifth Republic at the time of his appointment.