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PARIS — Michel Barnier hinted at a 2022 run for the French presidency in an interview with weekly magazine Le Point on Wednesday.
Barnier, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, said he would make clear his presidential intentions “in the fall,” in an interview titled “I want to…”
Barnier, who was speaking ahead of the release of his book “The Great Illusion,” has been touted as one of several options for the center-right party Les Républicains (LR), though the favorites remain Bruno Retailleau, Valérie Pécresse and Xavier Bertrand.
LR remains undecided on how to make the pick, debating whether to choose a primary-style system or simply back a so-called “natural” candidate, although the latter option would depend on the results of June’s regional elections.
Pécresse and Bertrand are both regional leaders seeking re-election, but Bertrand has already announced he will run for president no matter who his former party chooses to support (he left LR in 2017 but has been touted for a return).
Barnier would rather avoid a primary, arguing the party’s 2016 primary race was the “origin of divisions and personal resentment” between competitors.
In February, Barnier launched a group called Patriot and European to gather like-minded lawmakers. “I have a number of ideas and proposals to make, on all issues,” Barnier told France Info at the time, including “the authority of the State, decentralization and environment-friendly growth.”
Pushed on his divergences with Emmanuel Macron in the Le Point interview, Barnier, a former foreign minister and agriculture minister, questioned whether some of the president’s pre-pandemic fiscal measures had been fully understood, and said he would prefer lowering taxes on production, to make French businesses more competitive.
On Tuesday, Barnier was invited to the European Parliament as MEPs prepared to ratify the EU-U.K. trade deal that he negotiated.
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