OGUN, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- As Emmanuel Macron looks to forge a new government to resurrect his presidency, Gabriel Attal has been named the next prime minister of France.
At the age of 34, he has surpassed Socialist Laurent Fabius, who was appointed by François Mitterrand in 1984, to become the youngest prime minister in modern French history. Élisabeth Borne, who left her position after 20 months in charge, is replaced by Mr. Attal.
She battled the absence of a majority in parliament during that period. Gabriel Attal, who is currently education minister, certainly makes an eye-catching appointment. He will now have the task of leading the French government into important European Parliament elections in June.
His ascent has been swift. He was a card-carrying Socialist and an obscure adviser in the health ministry ten years ago.
Additionally, he will be the hotel Matignon’s first openly gay occupant. He is in a civil partnership with MEP Stéphane Sejourné, another of Macron’s bright young things. But will “eye-catching” be enough in light of the challenges presented by the president’s second term and the growing threat posed by the nationalist right?
Handsome, youthful, charming, popular, cogent, Mr Attal certainly comes to office trailing clouds of glory – much, let it be said, like his mentor and role-model the president himself. But like many go-getters of his generation, he was inspired by Emmanuel Macron’s idea of breaking apart the old left-right divide and re-writing the codes of French politics.
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In the wake of Macron’s 2017 election, Mr Attal became a member of parliament, and it was there that his brilliance as a debater – easily the best of the neophyte Macronite intake – brought him to the president’s attention.
At 29, he became the youngest ever minister in the Fifth Republic with a junior post at education; from 2020 he was government spokesman and his face began to register with the voters; after President Macron’s re-election, he was briefly budget minister and then took over at education last July. It was in this post that Mr Attal confirmed to the president that he has what it takes, acting with no-nonsense determination to end September’s row over Muslim abaya robes by simply banning them in schools.
He led a campaign against bullying – he himself was a victim, he says – at the elite École alsacienne in Paris, and took on the education establishment with his proposal to experiment with school uniform. And, all the while, he managed to buck the normal trends by actually becoming popular among the public.
Polls show that he is by far the most admired member of the Macron government – competing at the same level as the president’s main enemy, the nationalist Marine Le Pen and her youthful colleague Jordan Bardella.
BBC