Emmanuel Macron has installed baby-faced Gabriel Attal as his new Prime Minister, prompting an astonished reaction from the nation. The French President is desperately seeking a reset in the face of rising political pressure from the far right.
Mr Attal rose to prominence as the government spokesman and education minister and is also is France’s first openly gay prime minister. But the Education Minister has comparitively tender years – as he is aged 34.
It has caused consternation on social media, with many taken aback at Mr Macron’s decision to appoint the country’s youngest ever PM. Writing on X, former French Presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said: “Attal regains his position as spokesperson. The office of prime minister disappears.
“The presidential monarch governs alone with his court. Woe to the people whose princes are children.”
Writing on X, Dr Alice Lilly said: “Non merci to Gabriel Attal, making the rest of us thirty-somethings feel like massive underachievers.”
Jordan Bardella opted not to focus on Mr Attal’s age but, referencing the PM’s official residence, warned Mr Macron: “By appointing Gabriel Attal to Matignon, Emmanuel Macron wants to cling to his poll popularity to alleviate the pain of an interminable end to his reign.
“Rather, he risks taking the short-lived Minister of National Education with him in his fall…”
Mr Macron himself posted: “Dear @GabrielAttal, I know I can count on your energy and your commitment to implement the rearmament and regeneration project that I announced.
“In fidelity to the spirit of 2017: surpassing and audacity. In the service of the Nation and the French.”
Mr Attal’s predecessor Elisabeth Borne resigned yesterday after recent political turmoil over an immigration law that strengthens the government’s ability to deport foreigners.
Macron, 46, whose term ends in 2027, is to name a government in the coming days.
Attal, a former member of the Socialist Party, joined Macron’s newly created political movement in 2016 and was government spokesperson from 2020 to 2022, a job that made him well-known to the French public. He was then named budget minister before being appointed in July as education minister, one of the most prestigious positions in the French government.
Attal quickly announced a ban on long robes in classrooms which took effect with the new school year in September, saying the garments worn mainly by Muslims were testing secularism in the schools.
He also launched a plan to experiment with uniforms in some public schools, as part of efforts to move the focus away from clothes and reduce school bullying.
Mr Attal is in a civil union with Stephane Sejourne, a member of the European Parliament for Mr Macron’s La Republique En Marche!. He recently detailed on national television TF1 how he suffered bullying at middle school, including homophobic harassment.
French opinion polls show he was the most popular minister in Borne’s government.
William Pitt the Younger, Britain’s youngest ever leader, was 24 when he came into office in 1783. More recently, Sebastian Kurz was appointed Austrian Chancellor in 2017 at the age of 31.
Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest US President when he succeeded the assassinated William McKinley in 1900 at the age of 42 At 43, John F Kennedy is the youngest President at the time of being elected.
