Macron appoints Gabriel Attal, 'child prodigy' of French politics, prime minister

Gabriel Attal, named Prime Minister of France this Tuesday at only 34 years old, is a infant prodigy about politic. At 22 years old he was already a counselor in a ministry. At 29, he was Secretary of State. Later he was spokesperson for the Government, Minister of Public Accounts, and until this Tuesday, Minister of Education. Appointed by President Emmanuel Macron to succeed Élisabeth Borne, he becomes the youngest to hold this position during the Fifth Republic, the constitutional regime founded in 1958 by General De Gaulle. His name is already ringing in the pools to succeed Macron in the Elysée.

Macron trusts that the departure of Borne and the arrival of Attal will give a boost to a mandate that seemed to be stuck three years before the next presidential elections. Without an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the president's room for maneuver is limited. In office since May 2022, the prime minister had achieved legislative successes such as the approval of the unpopular pension reform. But, like all the occupants of her office, she was the president's fuse, or shield: when things get complicated, the prime minister jumps in. And the immigration law, adopted with the favorable vote of the extreme right, divided the Government and accelerated its progress.

In style and trajectory, few prime ministers are as different as Borne and Attal. Borne is 62 years old; Attal, almost half. Borne is a technocrat who knows the gears of the Administration inside out and a woman without political ambitions. She did not belong to Macron's circle of trust and her relations with the boss were professional, nothing more. Attal, a politician with a brilliant career and who aspires to the highest, is a trusted man of the president. Both coincide in their ideological origins. Both Borne and Attal worked with socialist ministers before turning to Macronism.

The previous youngest prime minister was Laurent Fabius, appointed by socialist François Mitterrand in 1984 at age 37. Fabius was another infant prodigy, although he never became president. Today he presides over the Constitutional Council. He was also a infant prodigy Macron himself. When he arrived at the Elysée in 2017 he was 39 years old. And there's something about Attal little Macron. A brilliant academic record, the appearance of being at the top of the class, rhetorical skill and audacity, precocity. Today he is the most popular minister. He arouses admiration that, as the current president knows from experience, can easily turn into irritation and resentment.

Attal is a product of the elite of the rive gauche of Paris, the left bank of the Seine, bourgeois and intellectual. Her father, who died in 2015, was a film producer who participated in films such as Far heels, by Pedro Almodóvaror Mutant actionby Álex de la Iglesia. He studied at the prestigious Alsatian School and at Sciences Po, the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. He learned the rudiments of politics in the cabinet of socialist minister Marisol Touraine. It was then that he came into contact with the group of advisors loaded with diplomas and ambitions that surrounded the Minister of Economy of the socialist François Hollande, a certain Emmanuel Macron. There he met his partner, Stéphane Séjourné, leader of the Renew group in the European Parliament and a loyal collaborator of Macron since the beginning of his political career, in the middle of the last decade.

Attal and Séjourné, possible candidate of the Macronist party in the European elections in June, form what Le Monde called in a report a few years ago a “pouvoir couple”. That is to say, a power couple, as Hollande and his partner for years, Ségolène Royal, could have been at other times. The appointment signals Macron's willingness to return to the origins, to the hard core of collaborators who helped him conquer power seven years ago. None of his previous prime ministers—neither the social democrat Borne nor the conservatives Jean Castex and Édouard Philippe—were Macronists. black pawlike Attal.

In recent days, rumors and poisonings were circulating unchecked in Paris. The ministers and collaborators were attentive to the telephone and the continuous information chains. A gesture or a word from the president, an appointment canceled at the last minute on the agenda, were interpreted as a sign. When the Elysée announced Borne's replacement on Monday afternoon, an immediate announcement from the new prime minister was expected. It didn't happen. The announcement was delayed. According to some media, at the last minute several seniors of macronism – the former Prime Minister Philippe, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, or the centrist baron François Bayrou – expressed their discontent with the candidacy of the young Attal. They could get some compensation in the power sharing of the new Government, which will be announced in the coming days.

Behind the appointment is the power struggle to succeed Macron, who, after two terms, cannot run again in 2027. Among the suitors are Le Maire and Philippe, as well as the current Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. By choosing Attal, the president establishes him as a first-rate politician. As prime minister, he can shine brighter than the seniors. But the new head of government runs the risk of burning out before the rest. There is no precedent for a prime minister who directly goes from this position to that of president.

Attal's ideology is difficult to define. He comes from the Socialist Party and from the left of the rive gauche, and has been assigned to the progressive wing of the Macronist. In his brief stint at the Ministry of Education, where he was appointed in July, his popularity has skyrocketed. He has received applause, also on the right, with measures such as the ban in the classrooms of the abaya, the traditional female tunic in some Muslim countries and identified as a sign of religious identity. She has pushed a plan to experiment with the uniform. And she has made combating bullying her priority. Her goal: restore authority in the school.

There is, in Attal's appointment, a desire for generational change. The other rising star in French politics is Jordan Bardella, president of the National Regroupment (RN), heir to the old ultra National Front party. Bardella, Marine Le Pen's right-hand man, is 28 years old. He will be the RN candidate in the European elections, perhaps against Séjourné. He is the clear favorite. The first test for the new prime minister will be these elections. A comprehensive defeat for the Macronists against the extreme right will be a blow for Macron. As has always happened, the fuse will remain: Gabriel Attal. The French prime minister, by definition, is always on the tightrope.

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