French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s next prime minister.

The Élysée Palace said in a statement on Thursday that Barnier ‘will be charged with forming a unifying government that will serve the country and the French’.

Barnier, 73, is a former member of France’s conservative Les Républicains (LR) party.

The approaching deadline for the start of budget talks for 2025 in parliament next month has increased the urgency to break the deadlock in France, where no new government has been formed for a long time, especially given the poor state of France’s public finances.

Barnier, a former LR statesman, refused to comment on the growing speculation about his candidacy or on his direct talks with the Élysée Palace.

Macron has chosen the prime minister Le Pen wants

But Barnier has emerged as a more suitable candidate than LR regional president Xavier Bertrand, who was close to taking up the post on Wednesday, people familiar with the talks told the Financial Times.

Bernier, who ran for the LR presidency in the 2022 election but lost to rival Valérie Pécresse, had taken a hard line on immigration in that campaign, proposing a three-to-five-year moratorium on non-EU arrivals in France and claiming immigration was ‘out of control’.

According to the FT, Bernier’s stance surprised those who knew him in Brussels, but it could make him more palatable to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN).

National Rally recognises Bernier’s legitimacy

Le Pen issued a statement from X following Bernier’s appointment, saying they recognised the prime minister.

As we announced to the President of the Republic, we will demand that the new head of government respect the 11 million French people who voted for the National Assembly and respect them and their opinions. We will pay close attention to the project he will put forward and we will make sure that the wishes of our voters, who represent a third of the French population, are heard and respected,’ she said.

Jordan Bardella, president of the RN, also said his party was considering the nomination of Michel Barnier as prime minister, adding: “We will evaluate his general policy speech, his budgetary decisions and his actions on the basis of the evidence”.

Mélenchon: ‘This government is the government of Macron and Le Pen’

The parties that make up the New Popular Front (NFP), which came first in the elections, reacted harshly to Macron’s decision.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of Unbowed France (LFI), reacted to Emmanuel Macron’s decision to appoint Michel Barnier as prime minister by claiming that the election had been ‘stolen’ from the French people.

The LFI leader said: “The prime minister was appointed with the approval and perhaps at the suggestion of the National Rally. This is practically the government of Mr Macron and Mrs Le Pen,” he said.

Olivier Faure of the Socialist Party (PS) also expressed concern about today’s decision.

“In all democracies in the world, the coalition that has to form a government is the first party. It is never the party that lost the election. Setting this precedent would be dramatic and dangerous for the institutions themselves,” Faure wrote.

Greens: Macron finds RN more acceptable than LFI

PS MP Arthur Delaporte said that Emmanuel Macron had ‘made a big mistake’ and that the French leader, elected ‘by the Republican Front’, had ‘succumbed to the blackmail of the RN and the extreme right’.

Marine Tondelier of the French Greens also criticised Macron’s decision.

Barnier’s appointment is possible because Macron finds the RN more acceptable than the LFI,’ said Sandrine Rousseau, another Green MEP.

LFI MEP Rodrigo Arenas went even further, saying that Michel Barnier’s arrival at the Matignon castle was a sign that ‘Marine Le Pen has seized power’.

Elections in the eastern German states of Saxony and Thuringia have once again confirmed the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

According to exit polls, the AfD won the state elections in the eastern German state of Thuringia on Sunday 1 September with 30.5 per cent of the vote, the party’s first victory in a state election.

Around five million people in the eastern German states of Saxony and Thuringia were eligible to vote for new state parliaments.

In the smaller state of Thuringia, the AfD made German history with 30.5 per cent of the vote, while the main opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) came second with 24.5 per cent.

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a new left-wing party founded by defectors from Die Linke, made a significant showing, coming in third with 16 per cent of the vote.

Incumbent state premier Bodo Ramelow’s Left Party, which has so far formed a minority government with the Social Democrats and the Greens, lost more than half its share of the vote compared to the previous election in 2019, reaching only 12.5 per cent of the vote this time.

Meanwhile, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD won 7 per cent of the vote, while the national coalition partners, the Greens and the liberal FDP, did not receive enough votes to be represented in the next state parliament.

In Thuringia, the turnout was over 70 per cent.

Right-wing consolidates in Saxony with AfD and CDU

Compared to previous state elections since the annexation of the GDR, voter turnout in Saxony reached record levels.

With 74.4 per cent of voters in the state, the turnout surpassed the record set in 1990, when 72.8 per cent of voters went to the polls.

According to public broadcaster ARD, the CDU of incumbent state premier Michael Kretschmer won a narrow victory in Saxony with 31.5 per cent of the vote, just ahead of the AfD with 30 per cent.

The BSW also came third in Saxony, with 12 per cent of the vote.

Kretschmer has so far governed in coalition with the Greens and the SPD, which won 5.5 per cent and 8.5 per cent of the vote respectively, and both will be represented in the next state parliament.

AfD leader Weidel: Voters want AfD-CDU coalition

Speaking to ZDF after the election results were announced, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel argued that voters had voted for an AfD-CDU coalition.

Pointing out that without the AfD there would be no stable government in the state governments, Weidel said that the parties forming the traffic light coalition in the federal government had been punished.

Tino Chrupalla, the party’s other co-leader, told ZDF that in Thuringia, as in Saxony, the will of the voters had been formed, that there should be a political change and that there was a clear mandate to govern in Thuringia.

“The AfD is ready to talk to all parties, and others should consider whether the so-called firewall against the AfD is still valid,” Chrupalla said.

AfD’s Höcke wants talks with other parties

“We are the number one people’s party,” Björn Höcke, leader of the AfD in Thuringia, told ARD television. Speaking of a historic result, Höcke added that he would start talks with other parties about joining the government.

We are ready to take on the responsibility of government,” Höcke said, adding that it was a good parliamentary tradition for the strongest party to invite people to talks after the election.

Höcke failed to win his own constituency in Thuringia. According to the state election officer in the Greiz II constituency, Höcke was defeated by CDU candidate Christian Tischner in the direct election to the state parliament. Höcke received 38.9 per cent of the vote, compared to 43 per cent for Tischner.

Höcke had long been looking for a promising constituency after losing the state election to the CDU in the predominantly Catholic Eichsfeld district of Thuringia five years ago.

CDU refused to cooperate with AfD, Greens and Left Party in Thuringia

CDU candidate Mario Voigt, who came second in Thuringia with 23.7 per cent of the vote, presented himself as a clear alternative to the minority coalition of left-wing state premier Bodo Ramelow, but found it difficult to capitalise on the discontent in the state.

Voigt organised his campaign as a “duel” between himself and Höcke, presenting himself as a Thuringia politician as opposed to a West German politician like Höcke or Ramelow.

Voigt categorically rejected cooperation with the AfD, as well as with the Left Party and the Greens.

Voigt told his supporters earlier in the evening that the CDU had returned as ‘the strongest force in the political centre’.

Voigt also believes that his party has the mandate to govern. “We in the CDU also see this as an opportunity for political change in the CDU leadership,” he said in Erfurt.

Left-wing premier wants CDU to form government

“I am fighting against the normalisation of fascism,” Thuringia’s Prime Minister Ramelow told ARD television about the AfD.

In the election campaign, Ramelow had not fought against the CDU or the BSW, but against the AfD. Now he believes that Voigt, the CDU’s top candidate, has taken on the task of governing.

“Whoever gets the most votes from across the democratic spectrum should initiate talks and invite them,” Ramelow said.

“I have no problem with a political office being given for a limited period of time,” the Left Party politician said of the prospect of losing his position as prime minister.

Green light from Wagenknecht for CDU and SPD

Alongside the AfD, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) was one of the big winners of the election.

With Katja Wolf, a former left-wing politician, as its top candidate in Thuringia, the BSW won 15.6 per cent of the vote and entered the state parliament in Erfurt.

During the election campaign, the BSW scored points on national issues, such as criticising arms supplies to Ukraine and calling for negotiations with Russia.

But its positions on limiting immigration and social security also attracted the attention of many voters.

“We hope to form a good government [in Saxony] together with the CDU, possibly also with the SPD,” party leader Sahra Wagenknecht told ARD television. “I hope it will work,” she said.

“A similar coalition could also be considered in Thuringia,” the BSW leader said.

Wagenknecht, on the other hand, explicitly ruled out a coalition with the AfD in Thuringia, stressing that they ‘cannot work together’ with AfD state leader Björn Höcke.

However, a statement on the BSW’s official X account said: “In addition to concrete improvements for the people, a commitment to diplomacy in the Ukraine war and a rejection of the deployment of US medium-range missiles are essential for possible coalitions. We do not exist only as a majority supplier. That remains the case,” the statement said.

The CDU is open to establishing contact with the BSW

CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann regards his party’s election results in Thuringia and Saxony as a success. Speaking to ARD, Linnemann said that the CDU is a ‘real people’s party’ and argued that the traffic light parties had been punished and that the AfD result was deceptive.

Linnemann emphasised that the CDU would not form a coalition with the AfD. As for possible alliances between the CDU and the BSW, he said that this would be decided in the federal states by the two CDU leadership candidates Kretschmer and Voigt.

Jens Spahn, deputy chairman of the CDU parliamentary group, believes that it is possible for the CDU to work together with the BSW at the state level. Spahn is convinced that the BSW in Thuringia primarily wants to focus on state politics.

For the first time since the Taliban seized power, Germany deported Afghan criminals by charter jet on Friday morning, a spokesman for Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.

Germany’s security interests clearly outweigh the interests of protecting criminals,’ the spokesman said.

Flight trackers showed that a Qatar Airways Boeing 787 took off from Leipzig for Kabul shortly before 7am.

The operation had been prepared for two months by the German chancellery and interior ministry. According to Der Spiegel, the 28 deportees were brought to Leipzig overnight from detention centres, given 1,000 euros in cash and accompanied by a doctor.

According to the report, the German government arranged the deportations through Qatar. Scholz’s coalition rejected direct negotiations with the Taliban regime.

In recent weeks, as the migration debate has flared up again, calls for the deportation of criminals from Germany to Afghanistan and Syria have become more frequent. In the summer of 2021, Germany stopped all deportations to Afghanistan due to the security situation following the withdrawal of US troops after 20 years and the return of the Taliban to power.

The flight to Kabul came just days after a Syrian national was arrested for the stabbing deaths of three people in Solingen.

German government tightens immigration policy

Germany’s ruling coalition announced tougher immigration measures on Thursday, days before two crucial state elections in the east of the country that are expected to trigger a political earthquake.

I think we can offer an appropriate package that responds appropriately to this terrible terrorist attack,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser of the SPD told reporters at a joint press conference with Justice Minister Marco Buschmann in Berlin.

The ministers pledged, among other things, to classify crimes committed with knives, including in Syria and Afghanistan, as grounds for deportation; to abolish benefits for asylum seekers whose state decides under the Dublin procedure that they should seek protection in the EU country they first entered; and to abolish the protection status of refugees who leave Germany to visit their home country without a compelling reason.

By cutting support for such ‘Dublin’ cases, the coalition hopes to reduce migration figures.

According to the German government, of the 25,000 asylum seekers who had to apply for asylum in another member state in the first half of 2024, only around 3,500 were transferred from Germany. The suspect in Solingen, for example, was able to avoid being sent to Bulgaria by hiding from the authorities until the deadlines had passed.

Government allows police to carry out random searches

There will also be a total ban on knives at public festivals and on public transport, and police will be allowed to carry out random searches for knives.

Anyone who attacks or threatens people with knives in Germany should be deported, and this should also apply to young people,’ said Buschmann of the FDP.

In addition, Faeser said the police would be allowed to carry out ‘random searches even without prior suspicion’.

Two new task forces to be set up

Berlin will also set up two task forces: One will investigate why the Solingen attacker, who had previously applied for asylum in Bulgaria, was not successfully extradited under Dublin rules after police failed to find him at his home.

The interior minister said that refugees whom other EU countries were prepared to take back would have their support cut off. This rule will become European law from 2027, following the adoption of the Asylum and Migration Pact.

The second group will be tasked with ‘preventing Islamism’ to combat radicalisation via the internet.

This will be complemented by additional policing of digital spaces, including biometric matching of public data and the use of artificial intelligence, Faeser said.

Buschmann said the new measures would be implemented ‘as soon as possible’.

However, the process is expected to take several months, as both ministries will have to prepare draft laws, which will then have to be approved by the cabinet and voted on by both houses of parliament.

CDU proposal to halt asylum applications rejected

Meanwhile, calls by the conservative leader of the main opposition party, Friedrich Merz (CDU), to immediately stop granting asylum to Syrian and Afghan refugees after the attack have been rejected.

Instead, the German government wants to cut off support for all applicants who return home without a valid reason, such as the funeral of a relative.

Buschmann also wants to make it easier to deny asylum to those who commit hate crimes motivated by ‘Islam, jihad or extremism’.