There is always a risk in promoting young, ambitious underlings. They may overshadow and outshine their sponsor, not a prospect any politician relishes. And in appointing 34-year-old Gabriel Attal as France’s youngest prime minister, President Emmanuel Macron seems to be breaking with tradition.
Attal, an articulate politician from the finishing schools of the French elite, has already proved his mettle in the education department, eclipsing Macron in popularity to rank as the most well-liked politician in France, according to Ipsos, with an approval rating of 40 per cent compared to the president’s 27 per cent. But Macron has chosen a man who resembles him in many ways, pragmatic with little core ideology.
Attal was early to see the tide was turning against his former Socialist Party and successfully jumped ship, pinning his colours to Macron’s nascent centrist party En Marche during its rise to power in 2017.
A fellow MP, Gilles Le Gendre, attributes his rise to “how our politics has become personality-driven and all about communication”. With Macron, France was beginning to see the eclipse of ideology, its own form of Blairism.
The minority government is deeply unpopular, weakened by battles in parliament and falling poll numbers. One of Attal’s first tasks will be to rally the party for European elections in June, ahead of which it is trailing Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) by about 10 percentage points in the polls.
The challenge from the far right is said to preoccupy Macron, who is determined that his legacy at the end of his term in 2027 will not be a Le Pen government. Attal, as minister for education, has played a part in the pushback with a recent decision to ban the wearing of the abaya by girls in schools. The controversial policy is strongly supported by the RN, which is also boasting that its immigration policies are now being adopted by the government. Attal’s combative competence, loyalty and willingness to run with Macron’s new line may well have helped secure his new job.