Barnier has been appointed after Macron repeatedly stalled on appointing a new prime minister.
He's a member of the Sarkozy Gaullist conservative party The Republicans that managed to muster a stunning result of under 7% of votes in the most recent elections.
I don't wanna say I told you so but I did comment "Wer hat uns verraten" about this situation a little while back and whaddaya know - Macron has just had his Paul von Hindenburg moment.
Shit's about to kick off. Let's hope that May 1968 was just the practice run for the French people and this time around they're gonna pull it off.
I genuinely don't know enough about how France actually works. Will this kind of thing spark mass protest and maybe have a backlash that makes the Left coalition stronger? Or do they just lay down like so many other movements?
Honestly of all the European countries, the French throw a protest unlike almost anyone else.
They are super territorial about labour rights, which I have nothing but respect for, and they'll create barricades and flip cars and burn shit if they're dissatisfied with what's going on in parliament.
Given that Macron is trying to push through reforms to erode pensions and he's been stalling on appointing a prime minister for quite a long time, and now he's betrayed the left coalition with his appointment, I would expect a lot of rage to spill out onto the streets of France.
For reference, the French government spent like a billion dollars to make the Seine river (allegedly) safe to swim in again for the first time in like 100 years. The French people were pissed off about this huge waste of money just to show off for the Olympics. I think the mayor of Paris committed to swimming in the Seine in the lead-up as a photo op and to instill confidence that the Seine was safe. The French people started to plot a protest of shitting in the Seine right before the mayor was going to swim in it and people even started to coordinate for when to shit at which points in the river to ensure the maximum effect.
Even if nobody took a shit in the Seine in protest, the fact that the option was on the table and considered viable to the point where people put in serious effort to coordinate says a lot about the French people's readiness to protest.