Michel Barnier can count more than 50 years in politics, but France's new prime minister is best known even in his native France as the EU’s chief negotiator in the Brexit years, reports BBC News.
His task was to represent the European Union during talks with the UK government and he was widely praised for his attention to detail and ability to reach consensus.
Born in the mountainous Savoie region in south-east France in 1951, Mr Barnier - a keen skier and hiker - has been a committed, patriotic conservative in the tradition of French leader Charles de Gaulle since he was a teenager.
He joined the right-wing Union for the Defence of the Republic (UDR) party when he was a teenager. To this day, he still belongs to the UDR’s successor, the Republicans (LR).
Mr Barnier did not attend the elite French École Nationale d’Administration, from which many of the country’s leaders hail – but did make history when, aged 27, he became the youngest MP ever elected.
He married Isabelle Altmayer, a lawyer, in 1982. The couple have three grown children and she was in the courtyard of the prime minister's residence at Hôtel Matignon when he took office.
In 1992 Mr Barnier took great pride in bringing the Winter Olympics to the Savoie – a feat that he said had taught him about working on big projects involving many people, while always keeping an eye on the prize.
He entered politics the following year and served as a cabinet minister in various French governments for several years. In 2010, he became the EU's internal market commissioner - one of the most coveted jobs in the European Commission.
Still, Mr Barnier aimed higher. In 2014 he mounted an unsuccessful attempt to become president of the European Commission, eventually losing out to Jean-Claude Juncker.