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PARIS — Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator on Tuesday announced he would launch a group called Patriot and European to gather like-minded lawmakers, fueling speculations about his presidential ambitions, French media report.
The group, which was officially announced during a meeting of Conservative party Les Républicains lawmakers at the National Assembly, will gather MPs and senators tasked with brainstorming on various political issues from the end of March, the date on which Barnier’s European mission will end.
“I have a number of ideas and proposals to make, on all issues,” Barnier told France Info, including “the authority of the State, decentralization and environment-friendly growth.”
“He has taken a political initiative” and “reminded [the group] of his availability for France and our political family,” said Damien Abad, president of the LR group at the National Assembly, the JDD reported.
Barnier made no secret of his political ambitions at home, which led many to suspect he wanted to run for the Conservative primaries. Speaking to reporters just weeks after the U.K. and the EU signed a bilateral trade pact, Barnier said he would “go back to France in a few weeks,” and “take back my place” in the conservative Les Républicains party, of which he has been a member for more than 55 years (the party has changed names many times in the course of its history).
Barnier is expected to present his proposals at the end of April, when he will publish a book based on a four-year diary of Brexit negotiations. He will draw lessons on why it happened, why it can happen again, populism and its dangers, according to France Info.
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