2024-01-10 15:18:10
The president of France, Emmanuel Macronappointed this Tuesday Gabriel Attal President of the Government, at a time of great weakness of the head of State. Macron is trying to give new impetus to his mandate, a year and a half after his re-election, involved in internal struggles and partisan wars that cause the country to paralyze. And, according to all analysts, he is pointing to his successor.
Gabriel Attal is the fourth prime minister appointed by Macron since his accession to the Elysée, after Edouard Philippe, Jean Castex and Élisabeth Borne. Despite his youth (34 years old), he is the owner of one of the largest assets of the current government, according to the statement he made when he entered the Executive.
Who is Attal?
Born in 1989 in Clamart (Hauts-de-Seine) into a wealthy family, his father, Yves Attal, was an audiovisual producer of Jewish-Tunisian origin, who died in 2015. His mother, Marie, daughter of a family of exiles from the Soviet revolution (White Russians), he has collaborated in the family production company. Thanks to this economically comfortable situation he was able to study in the best schools in the country.
A first-time Macronist, Gabriel Attal has had a meteoric career in just 5 years – although he has been dedicated to politics for 8 years – since he joined En Marche!, successively being spokesperson for the Government (2017-18) at the age of 31, minister of the State budgets (2022) and Minister of Education, from July 2023.
If he gained a lot of visibility as spokesperson for the Government, it has been his tenure as Minister of Education that has given him great popularity, being the protagonist of newspaper headlines day in and day out, by leading far-reaching reforms, such as the anti-bullying plan —which he himself suffered as a child— or the prohibition of abaya Muslim for violating the principle of religious neutrality, in addition to firmly defending the devolution of authority in the classrooms.
A Macron clone
There are many parallels between Macron and Attalwho has expressed his deep admiration for his boss and to whom he professes impeccable loyalty, going so far as to say in an interview: “I believe in Macron, I feel true loyalty for him, because I am convinced of his project.”
Like Macron, Attal is a precocious and dialectically brilliant politician, a great communicator with great physical attractiveness. Both have had a meteoric professional career and both are a typical product of the French elite. Attal studied at the Alsatian School, very prestigious in France, and later at Sciences Po, the Institute of Political Studies.
Finally, both come from socialism and formed part of former president François Hollande’s team. When Macron created En Marche! in 2017, Attal joined the party and was elected deputy.
Attal’s ‘merits’
Beyond his academic merits and his training, similar to that of the French political elite, all the media have highlighted two traits of Gabriel Attal that in themselves should not be considered a merit. Being young – the youngest prime minister of the Fifth Republic – and being openly homosexual – he would also be the first president of the Government to have declared it openly.
It is surprising so much insistence on youth as a merit, something that is at least debatable: precocity per se It is neither good nor bad. In Spain we have had in the last legislature examples of young ministers whose achievements in the exercise of their office can clearly be improved. The cult of youth is something typical of our time, but in itself it does not indicate anything about the new French prime minister, neither for nor against. At most, he has spent his entire (short) professional life dedicated to politics and, therefore, does not have any experience in the private sector.
As for what is gay —she is a partner of fellow Macronist deputy Stéphane Séjourne— and she does not hide it, more of the same: in the 24th year of the 21st century it would not even be necessary to comment on it. But it is something that all the media highlight as if his sexual life contributed something – it is understood that it is positive, if it were not it would not stand out – to his political performance, past and future.
Be that as it may, Attal currently enjoys a popularity that Macron lacks. While the president receives more than 65% negative opinions, his prime minister has a similar percentage of positive opinions.
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