Michel Barnier would like to make clear that he is not a closet Eurosceptic. The idea that the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator could in reality be a Gallic Boris Johnson or — God forbid — Nigel Farage is obviously a bizarre one, but Barnier, now running for the French presidency, has found himself mired in controversy after announcing that, if he makes it into the Elysée palace, he will call a referendum on curbing immigration and even temporarily suspending the right of the European Court of Justice to stop him.
Farage, predictably enough, accused his nemesis of hypocrisy for daring to challenge the supremacy of the EU institutions he once defended, while there was a rolling of eyes among the patrician Frenchman’s erstwhile
