Emmanuel Macron, the youngest President of France, has given his country the youngest Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic: On Tuesday, the 34-year-old Education Minister Gabriel Attal was promoted. Since the debacle of the immigration law, it was obvious that the exhausted Élisabeth Borne had done her job – something had to be done before the European elections in June. With Attal, the president has chosen a popular minister – second on the popularity scale after former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe – whose most important atout is his “energy” (Macron).
By what balance should he be judged?
Attal was Minister of Education for less than six months, but during that time he showed more skill than many of his predecessors. His abaya ban was a success and allowed him – who is part of Macron's left wing – to secure his right flank. The same applies to his resolute demeanor when another teacher in Arras was attacked and killed by an Islamist-motivated assassin. His reform proposal for the college, the middle school, contained something sensible: the move away from the motto of ever higher qualifications for more and more students is just as convincing as the approach of decisively supporting weaker students in the middle school; other points such as performance differentiation would need to be discussed. Either way: The minister has recognized a weak point in the education system and found a good target group in the tax-paying middle class – namely the majority of the population.
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