And now, what will Michel Barnier do?
“Mr. Brexit” of the European Union for four years, the one who was Minister of Jacques Chirac and then Nicolas Sarkozy ended his mission on a half-sweet, half-bitter note after the agreement with London torn off on Christmas Eve.
Satisfied with having succeeded in maintaining throughout the exhausting negotiations the unity of the Twenty-Seven in the face of the skilful maneuvers of Boris Johnson;
"Sad" to see a member of the family leave for the first time, at the end of a necessarily "lose-lose" Brexit for the United Kingdom as for the EU, he insisted, presenting the agreement 2000-page final, Thursday 24 December in Brussels, alongside Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
A certainty, at almost 70 years - he will celebrate them on January 9 - this seasoned politician but never bursting the screen despite his piercing blue eyes of a mountain dweller, having occupied since his beginnings as a young elected Savoyard Gaullist all the elective mandates and the positions that the Republic can offer before becoming the most European of the French since Jacques Delors, above all does not want to hear about retirement.
“I have missed France for four and a half years.
I will now devote all my energy to my country ”, declared Thursday the person concerned at the 20 Hours of France 2… immediately raising questions about a return to French politics.
But where could this macron-compatible LR insert land?
A return to the Quai d'Orsay?
In the immediate future, "tired" by these last two "intense" months, as he confided to a relative, Michel Barnier spent Christmas with his family in his house in Sologne, where he intends to rest and write his book on the Brexit adventure.
Tired ?
In this final sprint, the strategists of “BoJo” concentrated their attacks on the Frenchman, thus leaking in the tabloid press the idea that the “deal” had only become possible after “the sidelining” of Michel Barnier for the benefit of his “boss” Ursula von der Leyen.
False, retorts Sylvain Kahn, specialist in Europe, professor at Sciences-Po: “EU diplomacy is used, once the valiant teams of negotiators are exhausted in the field, to pass the baton to the big leaders who have the legitimacy to add the finishing touches ”.
"It is he who has been the maneuver since July 2016, when Jean-Claude Juncker
(then President of the European Commission, Editor's note)
entrusted him with the post of chief negotiator of the EU, telling him: there is no no one better than you to do it, ”confirms his former communications advisor Pierre-Jérôme Hénin.
Day after day, Michel Barnier has won the trust of the 26 other capitals through his almost obsessive concern for consensus, compromise and transparency, so far removed from the eternal French arrogance in the community.
An "ideal candidate" against Laurent Wauquiez?
The rumor of the microcosm - which he hates - gives it to the Quai d'Orsay (which he occupied for a short year before being driven out by Jacques Chirac after the failure of the European referendum of 2005), in place of Jean -Yves Le Drian who would go to the regions in his beloved Brittany.
"No way", denies the latter, who intends to stop his political career in 2022 in the next presidential election.
The name of this “historic Savoyard” had also circulated this fall within LREM to wear the colors of the presidential majority in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in June 2021. During the dinner on December 16 at the Elysee and around Emmanuel Macron, the executives of the majority made the observation of "the absence of credible candidate" to oppose in the region to the outgoing president LR Laurent Wauquiez.
It would have a scent of revenge since in 2015, the latter had been preferred to him as a candidate by the right… "Even if we welcome the exceptional work carried out by Michel Barnier, this candidate hypothesis is not reopened at this stage" , responds to the Parisian - Today in France the leadership of the presidential party ... even if some macronists persist in seeing in him the "ideal candidate".
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In any case, the former "Mr. Brexit", who refuses to "betray" his party of origin and has tasted the intoxication of the international peaks "far from the Parisian political shenanigans", will he have want to dive back into that bath?
If he displays his ambition to "be useful", he would probably be more tempted by an international mission or position commensurate with his experience.
"The president will have to spare him a place in his device", judges a close friend of Emmanuel Macron.