Will Michel Barnier govern for the provinces or for Paris?

Michel Barnier will unveil his government in France this week, a fortnight after the 73-year-old was nominated by Emmanuel Macron as the fifth prime minister of his presidency. It will be a government composed overwhelmingly of people from Barnier’s own party, the centre-right Republicans, and Macron’s centrist coalition. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally have ruled themselves out of contention for any posts, as have most political figures from the left.

It is a curious state of affairs that the Republican party, which won just 47 of the 577 seats in July’s parliamentary election, is now at the heart of government. But as a confidant of Macron recently told Le Figaro, the newspaper of conservative France: ‘Michel Barnier may not have a majority in the National Assembly, but he’s in tune with the country’s sociological majority.’

The left-wing coalition, which won the most seats in the elections, continue to claim that the result proves France is at heart a country that leans in that direction; economically, they may have a point, but socially France is a conservative country.