‘Mini-macron’ is made France’s youngest PM
President appoints minister who banned Muslim robes in schools as he attempts to take on the hard-right
‘I’m well aware of the context in which I take on this job’
EMMANUEL MACRON appointed a 34-year-old close ally as France’s youngest prime minister yesterday as he seeks to counter the hard-right in European and presidential elections and revive his flagging second term.
Gabriel Attal, who was the education minister, gained political plaudits recently by banning Muslim abaya robes in state schools to uphold French secularism.
Mr Macron, 46, and Mr Attal have a combined age just below that of Joe Biden, who is running for a second term in this year’s US presidential election.
“The youngest president in [France’s] history is appointing the youngest prime minister in [France’s] history. I want to see it as a symbol of audacity,” said Mr Attal, who became a household name as government spokesman during the Covid pandemic.
He will replace Elisabeth Borne, who was sacked on Monday.
The overhaul comes ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris and European parliament elections this summer, where Mr Macron’s centrist forces risk defeat at the hands of Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally.
After last year’s unpopular pension and immigration reforms, Mr Macron is banking on Mr Attal to assuage domestic divisions and improve his party’s chances in the June EU ballot with more consensual messages on reaching full employment and improving health and education.
Polls suggest that the Le Pen camp has got off to a flying start in the race by placing her own star protege, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, at the helm of her European campaign team, as her party is running up to 10 points ahead of Mr Macron’s Renaissance in opinion polls.
With Eurosceptic forces rising in countries like Slovakia and Holland, damage limitation is crucial in the EU elections if Mr Macron is to remain as influential in Brussels as his Renew group has been over the past six years.
Since Britain’s departure from the EU and former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s retirement, Mr Macron and statist French ideas have gained clout over EU policymaking.
The president’s aides have been increasingly fretful about Mr Bardella’s popularity in recent weeks.
A video of the young MEP receiving rock star treatment at a food market by a crowd of fans in search of selfies late November got alarm bells ringing in the Macron camp. “The president said we urgently needed someone to take on Bardella,” a source with knowledge of the president’s thinking told Reuters. In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Mr Bardella made it clear that he saw the European ballot as primarily a referendum for or against the Macron administration.
An impressive debater, Mr Attal has similarly silky communication skills and has shown an ability to win over conservative voters whose support Mr Macron dearly needs.
“It was the best card the president had up his sleeve,” Jérôme Fourquet, an Ifop pollster, said on BFM TV.
Domestically, Mr Macron’s ratings have taken a hit over surging living costs and unpopular reforms, which he only managed to push through by bypassing parliament, where he no longer enjoys a working majority.
“I’m well aware of the context in which I take on this job,” said Mr Attal.
“Too many French doubt our country, doubt themselves or our future. I think in particular of the middle class ... who get up every morning to go to work ... and sometimes can’t make ends meet,” he said, promising to work to “control our destiny and free up France’s potential”.
Mr Macron said in his New Year address he wanted to restore authority to counter a fragmented and increasingly violent society via “Civic Re-armament”.
“With his main reforms passed, Mr Macron will push for policies that will be more societal and atmospheric and probably less divisive,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at Eurasia. “They will try to respond to popular anxieties about French democracy, crime and anti-social behaviour.”
France was appalled when riots in city suburbs and widespread looting rocked the nation last summer. It also had to contend with a series of grim murders and Islamist attacks.
Mr Attal, who has been called “Macron Boy”, is also seen by some as a potential presidential candidate in 2027.
Some see his appointment as a canny move by Mr Macron to rein in those in his camp hoping to succeed him with Edouard Philippe, the former prime minister, Gérard Darmanin, the interior minister, and Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister, all seen as potential candidates.
One of the country’s most popular politicians in recent opinion polls, Mr Attal has impressed since taking over as education minister last summer, notably with the ban on abayas in schools, which pleased the Right. “Gabriel Attal is a bit like the Macron of 2017,” said Patrick Vignal, a French MP, adding that he “is clear, he has authority”.
But opposition leaders said they expected little from the prime minister who above all takes orders from the president and remains his fall guy.
Leftist firebrand Jean-luc Mélenchon said: “Attal is back as spokesman. The office of prime minister disappears. The presidential monarch governs alone with his court. Woe betide the people whose princes are children.”
Ms Le Pen said: “What can the French expect from this fourth prime minister and fifth government in seven years? Nothing.”