Who is Gabriel Attal, the youngest prime minister in French history appointed by Macron

Gabriel Attal was named Prime Minister of France on Tuesday. The announcement comes at a time when Emmanuel Macron seeks to revive his presidency with a new government.

Attal, 34, is the prime minister youngest in modern French historybeing younger than the socialist Laurent Fabius, appointed by François Mitterrand in 1984, at 37 years old.

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Attal replaces Élisabeth Borne, who resigned after 20 months in the role. Throughout this time, Borne faced his party’s lack of a majority in the French Parliament.

Gabriel Attal, who was Minister of Education, is undoubtedly an attention-grabbing appointment. It is he who will have the task of leading the government in the midst of European Parliament elections of June.

Attal’s rise was rapid. Ten years ago he was an obscure advisor to the Ministry of Health and a card-carrying member of the Socialists.

He will also be the first occupant of the Hôtel Matignon, the official residence of the Prime Minister of France. openly gay. In fact, she is partnered with another Macron wunderkind, MEP Stéphane Séjourné.

The reasons for his appointment

Given the difficulties of the president’s second term – and the growing challenge from the nationalist right –It will be enough to be “attractive”?

Handsome, young, charming, popular and convincing, Attal comes to office with an aura of glory, equal to that of his mentor and role model, the president himself.

Like many of the successful members of his generation, Attal was inspired by Emmanuel Macron’s idea of ​​breaking the old left-right divide and rewriting the codes of French politics.

After Macron’s election in 2017, Attal became a deputy. It was there that his intelligence as a debater – undoubtedly the best of Macronist neophytes – caught the president’s attention.

At age 29, he became the youngest minister in history of the Fifth Republic with a minor role in Education and from 2020 he was government spokesperson.

Gabriel Attal was in charge of the French Ministry of Education. (AFP).

From that moment on, his face began to be known among voters. After President Macron’s re-election, Attal was briefly Minister of the Budget and then took over Education last July.

It was from then on that Attal confirmed to the president that he has what it takes to occupy the position of prime minister, acting with determination to put an end to the dispute over Muslim clothing simply banning them in schools.

He led a campaign against bullying, of which he himself was a victim, he says, at the elitist Alsatian school in Paris and confronted the powerful in the education system with his proposal to try on the school uniform.

And, at the same time, he managed to buck the trend by becoming popular with the public.

Research shows that Attal is the official most admired of Macron’s governmentat the same level as the president’s main enemy, the nationalist Marine Le Pen and the young Jordan Bardella.

And there, of course, is the crux of the matter.

Attal’s challenges

By choosing Attal from his group of ministers, Macron has an ace up his sleeve. But will it work?

The endless process of appointments – everyone knew that a reorganization would happen, but not that it would take forever – shows that if Macron is aware of the weakness of his current position, he was also involved in a deep state of uncertainty about how to resolve it.

More than one commentator has pointed out the obvious that what voters want now is not so much a reorganization of the faces at the top as a new sense of purpose for Macron’s presidency.

But as things stand, Attal will face exactly the same problems as her long-suffering predecessor Élisabeth Borne.

On the one hand, an extreme right-wing opposition that is gaining popularity and seems likely to easily prevail in the European elections in June.

Macron faces the National Rally party led by Marine Le Pen. (AFP).

On the other hand, a National Assembly without a majority for the government, which poses obstacles to the promulgation of new laws. And a president who seems incapable of defining the objectives of his second term.

Furthermore, the new prime minister will have his own problem: beat heavyweights like Gérald Darmanin and Bruno Le Maire.

And what the plan is is the question some are asking, if Macron’s party loses heavily in the European elections, as it looks likely to happen.

Normally, this would be the time to replace the prime minister to give new impetus to the second half of the term. But that card has already been played.

In this case, faced with a possible government defeat in June, Gabriel Attal runs the risk of drift like a discredited loser.

Even opposition members recognize that he is a remarkable, respected and loved person in the National Assembly.

Source: Elcomercio