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| ©BERTRAND GUAY/AFP |
Gabriel Attal has been named France's next prime minister, as Emmanuel Macron aims to revive his presidency with a new government. At 34, he is the youngest PM in modern French history, outranking even Socialist Laurent Fabius who was 37 when he was appointed by François Mitterrand in 1984. Attal replaces Élisabeth Borne, who resigned after 20 months in office due to a lack of a majority in parliament. He will now have the task of leading the French government into important European Parliament elections in June.
Attal's rise has been rapid, with his rise from an obscure adviser in the health ministry and a card-carrying member of the Socialists. He will also be the first openly gay occupant of Hôtel Matignon and has a civil partnership with another Macron whizz-kid, the MEP Stéphane Sejourné. Given the difficulties of the president's second term and the growing challenge from the nationalist right, is "eye-catching" alone going to cut it?
Handsome, youthful, charming, popular, and cogent, Attal comes to office trailing clouds of glory - much, let it be said, like his mentor and role-model the president himself. Like many go-getters of his generation, he was inspired by Emmanuel Macron's idea of breaking apart the old left-right divide and re-writing the codes of French politics.
At 29, he became the youngest ever minister in the Fifth Republic with a junior post at education. From 2020, he was government spokesman and his face began to register with the voters. After President Macron's re-election, he was briefly budget minister and then took over at education last July.
In this post, Attal confirmed to the president that he has what it takes, acting with no-nonsense determination to end September's row over Muslim abaya robes by banning them in schools. He led a campaign against bullying at the elite École alsacienne in Paris and took on the education establishment with his proposal to experiment with school uniform.
Polls show that he is by far the most admired member of the Macron government, competing at the same level as the president's main enemy, the nationalist Marine Le Pen and her youthful colleague Jordan Bardella. By drawing Gabriel Attal from his pack of ministers, Mr. Macron is using an ace to outplay the queen and her jack.
