France’s Macron appoints new PM, hoping to boost EU campaign

[This article was updated at 14:41]

Education Minister Gabriel Attal was appointed France’s prime minister on Tuesday (9 January), just months ahead of EU elections, in the hope of setting a new clear political line after heavy political instability that had sapped President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity.

Aged 34, Attal is making history as France’s youngest ever, and openly gay, prime minister. He replaces Elisabeth Borne, who resigned on Monday.

A close ally of Macron from day one, he held the post of government spokesperson throughout the pandemic, rising through the ranks to public accounts minister overseeing the pension reform, before becoming education minister in July.

“I know I can count on your energy and commitment to implement the rearmament and regeneration [political goals] I have announced […] at the service of both the Nation and French people,” Macron posted on social media platform X.

Elysée confirmed Attal had been tasked with proposing a new cabinet – expected to be revealed in the next few hours.

Attal’s nomination follows several months of high political tensions, which saw the adoption of two heavily criticised pieces of legislation amid the absence of an absolute majority for Macron’s Renaissance party in the National Assembly.

The pension reform, which raised the minimum legal retirement age from 62 to 64, was the source of significant confrontation with trade unions and the street in the first three months of 2023.

The final text was adopted through the ’49.3’ constitutional tool, which can force a bill through parliament without a vote, so long as a subsequent vote of no confidence falls through – and for the pensions bill it fell only nine votes short.

In December, the country also saw the adoption of a hotly-debated immigration bill, the content of which was highly influenced by right-wing and far-right proposals over ‘national preference’ and curtailing migrants’ access to benefits and citizenship – in turn securing conservatives Les Républicains (LR) and far-right Rassemblement National (RN) MP votes.

Macron expresses concern over European elections in New Year speech

French President Emmanuel Macron called for unity in the country in his New Year’s Eve address Sunday (31December) as it prepares for the 2024 Olympic Games, after a difficult year for his government.

Progressive/populist divide

The nomination thus looks to give Macron’s second five-year term a new boost – as campaigning for EU elections is due to ramp up ahead of the June vote, and the president’s Renaissance movement is trailing far behind Marie Le Pen’s far-right RN in polls.

Attal “will become the de facto face of Macronism in the European elections in June,” Mujtaba Rahman, Managing Director Europe at Eurasia Group, a consultancy, wrote in a note obtained by Euractiv.

The young former Education minister is judged to be “telegenic, fluent, and pugnacious” in facing far-right lead candidate Jordan Bardella, aged 28, also a rising star, the note reads.

“If only through his age and devotion, [Attal] can help reinforce the progressive/populist divide that Macron so effectively created in 2019” for the last EU elections, Mathieu Gallard, a pollster, told Euractiv.

This is all the more pressing as left-leaning Place Publique MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, an EU lawmaker sitting with Socialists & Democrats (S&D), is deemed to become an influential contender.

Attal’s appointment could help move on from the immigration bill – and the government’s seeming alliance with the far-right – and set a new tone ahead of elections.

It could also appeal to more conservative voters, as the conservative Les Républicains is due to split in two between liberal conservatives and those ready to work closely with the RN counterparts.

“He’s very clearly identified by French voters as a top-tier minister,” Gallard told Euractiv. Polls indicate he’s topped the charts as France’s favourite political figure over the past two months.

He also spearheaded a campaign in August against Abayas in schools, a traditional Muslim womenswear deemed to put laïcité principles – France’s radical form of secularism – at threat, an issue particularly salient to right-wing voters.

French ban of abaya robes in schools draws applause, criticism

French conservatives on Monday (28 August) applauded the government’s decision to ban children from wearing the abaya, the loose-fitting, full-length robes worn by some Muslim women, in state-run schools, but the move also drew criticism and some mockery.

“Hanging on to polls’ numbers”

But the appointment still drew heavy criticism from political opposition, for whom Attal’s nomination is just a continuation of Macron’s liberal-minded politics.

“It’s much ado about nothing,” Aurore Lalucq, Place Publique EU lawmaker and right-hand woman to Glucksmann, told Euractiv, deploring Macron’s “extreme centralisation of power”.

She further blamed Macron’s EU parliamentary group Renew to “fail to be a counter-power to the EU Council and the European Commission” – a reality that Attal’s appointment will not change.

Meanwhile, far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, another stern critic of Macron’s policies, posted on X: “The role of prime minister disappears. The presidential monarch is alone with his court. Woe betide nations whose princes are children”.

RN’s Bardella further accused Macron to “hang on to [Attal’s] poll numbers to soften the blow of an interminable end to [Macron’s] reign”.

Attal as Prime Minister is likely to create a relative boost to the government’s poll numbers, Gallard predicts, “though that’s unlikely to last until the eve of the elections”.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]