France ‘must regain legal sovereignty’, says Barnier

MICHEL BARNIER yesterday said that France had to win back the sovereignty it has lost to European courts and called for a referendum on banning non-eu immigration.

The former Brexit negotiator was accused of hypocrisy because his comments appeared to contradict many of the positions he took when he was helming talks with the UK. During the Brexit negotiations. Mr Barnier, who is running to be French president for the centre-right Republicans party, called for the European Court of Justice to continue to hold sway in the UK and insisted it remained the sole and supreme arbiter of EU law.

He also secured British commitments that the UK would remain part of the European Court of Human Rights, which is not an EU institution, in return for cooperation on extradition after Brexit.

Mr Barnier said at a rally, “we must regain our legal sovereignty. We will propose a referendum in September on the issue of immigration,” he said, referring to his earlier call for a halt on noneu immigration into France for 5 years.

Mr Barnier later tweeted a clarification saying that France should not break entirely free of the European courts but only have a “constitutional shield” on matters to do with non-eu immigration.

Freedom of movement, which is open to EU nationals in the bloc, would continue under his proposal, which would stop all non-eu residency permit requests for three to five years except asylum seekers and students.

“This is ironic in the extreme,” tweeted Simon Clarke, the Tory MP.

Nigel Farage, told The Daily Telegraph Mr Barnier was the “biggest hypocrite ever born” for co-opting eurosceptic arguments after working for the EU for so long.

Mr Barnier also took aim at the Franco-german relationship at the heart of EU policy making. He said that the relationship was unbalanced by a dominant Berlin and France needed to reassert itself.