‘Mini-Macron’ makes himself the star

The prime minister is thrusting himself forward in a most unseemly and un-French way, said Cyprien Caddeo. Gabriel Attal, desperate to be anointed successor to term-limited President Emmanuel Macron, has replaced the usual weekly Q and A between lawmakers and cabinet ministers with a “one-man show” starring himself, modeled on Britain’s Prime Minister’s Question Time. Who needs a cabinet, the thinking goes, when the prime minister can pose as “an expert in everything, capable of tackling the entire opposition singlehandedly?” As expected, Attal treated the occasion as “a pure exercise in showmanship, to the detriment of substance and parliamentary dialogue.” He batted away every legitimate question with a “self-satisfied” regurgitation of government talking points. It was the behavior of a government spokesperson, his previous occupation, not of a prime minister who must be “responsible to parliament.” Lawmakers derided the event as propaganda, a waste of their time in the service of one man’s ego. “It could not be otherwise.” The ambitious Attal, who was promoted from education minister to prime minister in January at age 34, has his eye on the 2027 presidential election. He seems to believe that to win, he must play “mini-Macron,” pursuing a strategy of “hyperactivity and media omnipresence.” It’s going to be a long few years.