France has first openly gay prime minister
PARIS — In a typically bold bid to revitalize his second term, President Emmanuel Macron named Gabriel Attal, 34, as his new prime minister, replacing Élisabeth Borne, 62, who made no secret of the fact she was unhappy to be forced out.
Attal, who was previously education minister and has occupied several government positions since Macron was elected in 2017, becomes France’s youngest and first openly gay prime minister. A recent Ipsos-Le Point opinion poll suggested he is France’s most popular politician, albeit with an approval rating of just 40%.
Macron, whose second term has been marked by protracted conflict over a pensions bill raising the legal retirement age to 64 from 62 and by a restrictive immigration bill that pleased the right, made clear he saw in Attal a leader in his own disruptive image.
“I know that I can count on your energy and your commitment to push through the project of civic rearmament and regeneration that I have announced,” Macron said in a message addressed to Attal on X, formerly known as Twitter. “In loyalty to the spirit of 2017: transcendence and boldness.”
Macron was 39 when he sundered the French political system that year to become the youngest president in French history.
Attal, a loyal ally of the president since he joined Macron’s campaign in 2016, will be 38 by the time of the next presidential election in April 2027, and would likely become a presidential candidate if his tenure in office is successful.
This prospect holds no attraction for an ambitious older French political guard, including Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister, and Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, whose presidential ambitions are no secret.
But for Macron, who is term-limited, it would place a protégé in the succession mix.
“My aim will be to keep control of our destiny and unleash our French potential,” Attal said after his appointment.
Standing in the bitter cold at a ceremony alongside Borne, in the courtyard of the prime minister’s residence, Attal said his youth — and Macron’s — symbolized “boldness and movement.” But he also acknowledged many in France were skeptical of their representatives.