Macron's latest prime minister is France's youngest - and first OPENLY gay - leader

Times of Israel
Tue, 09 Jan 2024 18:27 UTC

Popular former education minister, 34, will work with president on government shakeup; his late father was Jewish

Gabriel Attal was named Tuesday as France's youngest-ever prime minister, as President Emmanuel Macron seeks a fresh start for the rest of his term amid growing political pressure from the far right.

Macron's office announced the appointment in a statement. Attal, 34, rose to prominence as the government spokesman and education minister. He is France's first openly gay prime minister.

Attal's late father, Yves Attal, was Jewish.

His predecessor Elisabeth Borne resigned Monday following recent political turmoil over an immigration law that strengthens the government's ability to deport foreigners.

Macron - who was France's youngest-ever president when he came to power in 2017 — is to work with Attal to name a new government in the coming days, though some key ministers are expected to continue in their posts.

The 46-year-old president has shifted rightward on security and migration issues since rising to power on a pro-business centrist platform in 2017, notably as far-right rival Marine Le Pen and her anti-immigration, anti-Islam National Rally have gained political influence.

Attal, a former member of the Socialist Party, joined Macron's newly created political movement in 2016 and was government spokesperson from 2020 to 2022, a job that made him well-known to the French public. He was then named budget minister before being appointed in July as education minister, one of the most prestigious positions in the French government.

Attal quickly announced a ban on long robes in classrooms, which took effect with the new school year in September, saying the garments worn mainly by Muslims were testing secularism in the schools.

He also launched a plan to experiment with uniforms in some public schools, as part of efforts to move the focus away from clothes and reduce school bullying.

Attal recently detailed on national television TF1 how he suffered bullying at middle school, including homophobic harassment.

French opinion polls show he was the most popular minister in Borne's government.

Comment: Attal seems to consider himself Jewish. From the Jewish Telegraph Agency:

France's newest prime minister is getting attention for the two firsts he brings to the job: Gabriel Attal, at 34, is the country's youngest ever prime minister, and its first to be openly gay.

He says another facet of his identity also shapes him: His late father's Jewishness.

Attal's mother raised him and his siblings in her Russian Orthodox Christian faith. But his father, the film producer Yves Attal, was Jewish, born in Paris to Tunisian Jewish and European Jewish parents.

"My father said to me, 'Perhaps you're Orthodox but you'll feel Jewish all your life, mainly because you'll suffer antisemitism because of your name'," Attal told Liberation in 2019. Attal is a common North African Jewish name and would be recognized as such in France, where there are large populations of Tunisian and Algerian Jews.

Oh boy...