Gabriel
Attal has been named France's next prime minister, as Emmanuel Macron
aims to revive his presidency with a new government.
At
34, he is the youngest PM in modern French history, outranking even
Socialist Laurent Fabius who was 37 when he was appointed by François
Mitterrand in 1984.
Mr Attal replaces Élisabeth Borne, who resigned after 20 months in office.
Throughout that time she struggled with a lack of a majority in parliament.
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
rise has been rapid. Ten years ago he was an obscure adviser in the
health ministry, and a card-carrying member of the Socialists.
He
will also be the first openly gay occupant of Hôtel Matignon. He has a
civil partnership with another Macron whizz-kid, the MEP Stéphane
Sejourné.
But
given the difficulties of the president's second term - and the growing
challenge from the nationalist right - is "eye-catching" alone going to
cut it?
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.
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.
By
drawing Gabriel Attal from his pack of ministers, Mr Macron is using an
ace to outplay the queen and her jack. But will it work?
The
drawn-out process of naming him - everyone knew a reshuffle was coming
but it took forever - shows that if President Macron is well aware of
the weakness of his current position, he has also been in deep
uncertainty over how to address it.
