French President, Emmanuel Macron, has appointed Gabriel Attal as the country’s new Prime Minister, making him the youngest to hold the position.
The 34-year-old education minister was announced yesterday, and is one of the country’s most popular politicians, according to recent opinion polls.
Attal replaces outgoing Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne who resigned on Monday amid a cabinet reshuffle as Macron hopes to give new momentum to the final three years of his presidency.
The move will not necessarily lead to any major political shift but signals a desire for Macron to try to move beyond last year’s unpopular pension and immigration reforms and improve his centrist party’s chances in the June EU ballot.
Opinion polls show Macron’s camp trailing far-right leader, Marine Le Pen’s party by around eight to 10 percentage points.
Macron, at the end of 2023, had said he would announce new political initiatives.
“Dear @GabrielAttal, I know I can count on your energy and your commitment to implement the project of revitalisation and regeneration that I announced,” Macron said.
Attal will be France’s youngest Prime Minister and the first to be openly gay.
He and Macron have a combined age just below that of Joe Biden, who is running for a second mandate in this year’s U.S. presidential election.
Macron has struggled to deal with a more turbulent parliament since losing his absolute majority shortly after being re-elected in 2022.
Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old leader of Le Pen’s National Rally party, said: “By appointing Gabriel Attal, Emmanuel Macron wants to cling to his popularity in opinion polls to alleviate the pain of an interminable end to his reign.
“Instead, he risks taking the short-lived education minister with him in his fall.”
Other opposition leaders were quick to say they did not expect much from the change in Prime Minister, with Macron himself taking on much of the decision-making.
Socialist Party Leader Olivier Faure told France Inter radio: “Elisabeth Borne, Gabriel Attal, or someone else, I don’t care. It will just be the same policies,”
However, MP Patrick Vignal, who belongs to Macron’s Renaissance party, said Attal is “a bit like the Macron of 2017”, referring to the point at which the president first took office as the youngest leader in modern French history at the time, a popular figure among voters.
“It is clear, he has authority,” Vignal said.
The Laurels International Magazine
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