dpa
Paris
President Emmanuel Macron has appointed 34-year-old former education minister Gabriel Attal as France’s new prime minister, the Élysée Palace announced on Tuesday, after Élisabeth Borne’s centrist government resigned the previous day.
Macron is eager to reorganize the government following recent difficulties in passing the new immigration law.
Elections to the European Parliament are scheduled for the spring and France is organizing the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer.
Attal is a political high-flyer who was known to the French as a government spokesman. Most recently, he headed the Ministry of Education. Now, at the age of 34, he is set to become the youngest prime minister in recent French history.
Attal is considered to be very popular and has a reputation for being able to discuss issues with representatives from other political camps.
Macron could also match Attal better than Borne in terms of type: Attal’s dynamic nature and his stellar career remind observers of the president.
In France, the prime minister has a subordinate role to the president, who has important powers similar to those of the US president. Some experts even call the French system a “presidential monarchy.” The president sets the broad lines of domestic and foreign policy, which the prime minister and the government generally follow. For Macron, the appointment of Attal and the associated reshuffle of the Cabinet is about moving forward. Since the 2022 parliamentary elections, his camp no longer has an absolute majority in the National Assembly and is reliant on votes from the opposition.
Macron already pushed through the highly controversial pension reform last year without a final vote in the chamber. With the new immigration law, the government made such massive concessions to the conservative Republicans in December that lawmakers from the government’s own ranks voted against the law and the camp threatened to break up.
However, a minimum degree of stability is important for Macron right now, as he faces major challenges in the coming months. Marine Le Pen’s right-wing nationalists are threatening to significantly overtake the candidates from his political camp in the European elections in June.
In addition, the major event of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris in the summer, where France wants to present its best side, needs to be organized. It is expected that Attal’s government team will be presented in the coming days.
