34-year-old Gabriel Attal nominated French Prime Minister

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Emmanuel Macron has nominated 34-year-old Gabriel Attal as the new Prime Minister, making him the youngest to ever hold this position in France. The appointment marks the culmination of the now former Minister of Education’s rapid rise within French politics. His young age, coupled with his oratory skills and strong media presence, has earned him the nickname of “baby Macron”.

By naming for the first time an already-popular figure as Prime Minister, Macron aims at reversing the current electoral trend, where Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National currently has a ten-point lead in the polls.

Successively Government spokesperson then Minister of Public Action and Accounts before his five-month stint as Minister of Education, Attal is notable for having passed the ban of abayas - loose-fitting robes worn by some Muslim students - in schools last September. Although Attal promised to make education “the mother of all our battles”, actors of the education system expressed their frustration at already being on their fourth minister under Macron.

He succeeds Elisabeth Borne as Prime Minister, who resigned on January 9th after 20 troubled months. Her time in Matignon was punctuated by 12 applications of the infamous constitutional Article 49.3, which allows the government to bypass the legislative body. Its most controversial use was certainly for pension reform, where the increase of the retirement age from 62 to 64 gathered between one and two million protesters throughout the country. 

More recently, the hardline immigration law under Borne’s government, which was praised by Le Pen as an “ideological breakthrough”, stirred indignation among portions of the population and divided the majority . The solidification of the fragmented presidential majority will be a major challenge for Attal as 59 members of the majority either opposed or abstained from voting in favour of said law,with health minister Aurélien Rousseau resigning in protest.

Attal will also have to deal with galloping inflation (4.9% in 2023), Macron’s promise of full employment by 2027, the upcoming Olympics and the highly tense international climate.