BY NBC NEWS
In response to mounting political pressure from the extreme right, President Emmanuel Macron is seeking a new start for the remainder of his mandate. On Tuesday, Gabriel Attal was chosen as the youngest prime minister in French history.
The nomination was made public by Macron’s office in a statement. As the minister of education and the government spokesperson, Gabriel Attal, 34, gained notoriety. He is the first homosexual prime minister of France.
Elisabeth Borne, his predecessor, resigned on Monday in the wake of recent political unrest over an immigration bill that increases the government’s authority to remove foreign nationals.
When he took office in 2017, Macron became the youngest president of France. He will collaborate with Attal to form a new cabinet in the following days, while several important ministers are anticipated to stay in their positions.
Since taking office in 2017 on a pro-business centrist platform, the 46-year-old president has moved to the right on security and immigration concerns, particularly as her far-right competitor Marine Le Pen and her anti-immigrant, anti-Islam National Rally have acquired political clout.
Former Socialist Party member Gabriel Attal joined Macron’s newly formed political organization in 2016 and served as the government spokesman from 2020 to 2022, gaining widespread recognition among the French people in that capacity. After that, he was designated minister of the budget. In July, he was promoted to the highly esteemed job of minister of education inside the French government.
Gabriel Attal swiftly declared that long robes would not be permitted in classrooms beginning with the September school year. He said that the mostly Muslim attire was a test of secularism in the classroom.
Along with this, he announced plans to test the use of uniforms at a few public schools in an attempt to shift the conversation away from clothing and curb bullying.
Gabriel Attal recently discussed his experiences with bullying in middle school, including homophobic abuse, on the national television network TF1.
According to French public surveys, he was Borne’s most well-liked minister.
