Hello, everyone. Today at WPR, we’re covering France’s policy shift on Western Sahara’s sovereignty and why Donald Trump’s signature campaign issue isn’t so effective anymore.

But first, here’s our take on today’s top story:

France: President Emmanuel Macron named Michel Barnier, a conservative, as the country’s new PM yesterday, two months after snap legislative elections resulted in political deadlock. Barnier is best known internationally as the EU’s Brexit negotiator, but he is a lifelong politician who has served in previous French governments. (Washington Post)

Our Take: The snap legislative elections Macron called in early July left him with a crisis entirely of his own making. The leftist NFP coalition won the most seats in parliament, successfully keeping Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, or RN, from being able to form a government. But no party or coalition won an absolute majority, meaning Macron had to find a PM who could survive an immediate vote of no confidence—no small task.

Barnier’s name only surfaced in the past few days, after nearly two months of speculation during what Macron called an “Olympic truce” and several weeks of protracted negotiations since the end of the Paris Games. But in retrospect, he is an ideal pick, and perhaps the only one that might get Macron out of his predicament.

On the one hand, Barnier has spent most of the past two decades in Brussels working in various EU positions, allowing him to benefit from the image of a disinterested and nonpolitical technocrat, not to mention that of an elder statesman—he is modern France’s oldest PM, a marked contrast to his predecessor, who was its youngest. On the other hand, he is a lifelong politician and no stranger to French politics, having run for the presidential nomination of his party, the Republicans, or LR, in 2022.

The combination of the two means he will likely have the savvy to navigate what is sure to be a contentious political landscape in the coming months as France enters budget negotiations, a task for which Barnier’s most recent experience as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator will come in handy.

Notably, Barnier also dramatically hardened some of his political positions when he sought the LR’s nomination in 2022, specifically on migration and national sovereignty, meaning the RN should find him acceptable. That’s important, since the NFP—understandably bitter that it was passed over for the PM position by Macron despite winning the most seats—is set to try and topple Barnier’s government, but can’t do so without the RN’s votes.

Still, even if Barnier might be able to break the post-election impasse, he will not resolve Macron’s and France’s broader political crisis—if anything, he may make it worse. Macron has staked his entire political legacy on being the only barrier keeping the far right from power, and he called the recent elections on the bet that voters would demonstrate as much. Instead, the left proved to be a more effective force than Macron’s centrist coalition at preventing a far-right government.

Yet Macron chose to bypass the NFP due to the presence among its ranks of the far-left France Unbowed party of Jean-Luc Melenchon, selecting instead a PM who might placate the far right, essentially making himself beholden to his chief antagonist and undermining the fundamental promises he made to his supporters. That not only further weakens his own political position, but will also make it incredibly difficult for the center-right members of his centrist coalition—some of whom are already prepping for the 2027 presidential election—to make a credible case to differentiate themselves from the far right.

As a result, the political crisis provoked by Macron is anything but resolved. The NFP had already called for demonstrations this weekend to protest Macron’s refusal to name a PM from its ranks, and those protests are only set to be more bitter and inflammatory now. Meanwhile, although the RN has signaled its openness to Barnier, it has conditioned its support for him on a change to electoral laws to allow for more proportional representation as well as new legislative elections at the earliest opportunity, meaning next July.

Put simply, France is still mired in political turmoil. And with the Paralympic Games ending this weekend, the Olympic Fever that distracted the French from that fact will soon be a distant memory.

On July 31, with little fanfare or attention, France formally recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, becoming the latest Western country to throw its weight behind Morocco’s unlawful, unilateral annexation of the territory.

This formal recognition of Morocco’s de facto sovereignty over the territory may not at first glance appear to have global ramifications. But it will indeed have reverberations around the world, eroding the rule of international law that prohibits the acquisition of territory by force as well as the recognition of such an illegal act by other states, Sarah Leah Whitson writes.