From left to right: Emmanuel Macron, Gabriel Attal, Jordan Bardella, Marine Le Pen
Leaders who made their mark in France, in That's basically what they did. still young. From Joan of Arc to Napoleon Bonaparte, the common factor has always been youth. Key players of the French Revolution — Danton, Robespierre, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette — were executed by guillotine in their thirties.
So in some ways it should not have been a surprise that Emmanuel Macron, the youngest French head of state since Napoleon, has now appointed Gabriel Attal as the youngest prime minister in French history.
A bold gesture at that. , it would not be an exaggeration to say that Macron has anointed his heir. Now Attal, in fact, is the Dauphin of France.
His main task will be to prevent the rise of the right-wing nationalists who are now marching across a European continent gripped by border anxiety. But the world will also be watching to see whether the new government in Paris can bring France back into alignment with Washington, London and the English-speaking powers, or continue to follow Macron's course of Gaullist isolationism cloaked in European rhetoric.< br />
Attal is only 34 years old and has less than a year of high-level cabinet experience as education minister. This is a bold choice to run a government.
The same can be said about the appointment of Stéphane Sejournet as Minister of Foreign Affairs. At 38, he is also unusually young for such a high post. Séjournet was secretary general of Macron's party, now known as the Renaissance, but has no experience in foreign affairs.
Moreover, two years ago Sejourn and Attal were in a civil union. France has never before had an openly gay prime minister or foreign minister. Now he has both — and the former couple will have to work together as colleagues.
Macron likes to be bold. In his tweet, he reminded Attalus that courage was the spirit of 2017 when he came to power.
Cher @GabrielAttal, I know that I can get energy and participate in the rearmament and regeneration project that I just announced. True to the spirit of 2017: detachment and courage. Au service de la Nation et des Français.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) January 9, 2024
Now the president has rejuvenated his flagging administration with a younger generation, a new group of brothers. He wants his new prime minister to help him return to Danton the revolutionary's motto: De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace! (Courage, more courage and even more courage!).
Like many political careers in the recent past of Western democracy, Attal's career took off during the pandemic. As the president's spokesman at a time when an anxious nation was glued to his screens, Attal came across as an eloquent, strong and handsome man who became an instant hit with the French public.
Attal has said many times that he owes everything to Emmanuel Macron, but it would be more accurate to say that he owes at least as much to Macron’s wife, Brigitte. The French do not officially recognize the position of «First Lady», but no one doubts that Mrs Macron has enormous influence, especially in her own field of education.
Brigitte Macron worked closely with her husband's protégé Gabriel Attal. Photo: JULIEN DE ROSE/AFP via Getty Images
She worked closely with Attal during her husband's first term, when the young protégé was appointed minister of junior schools and then, last year, headed education, the government's largest department. Brigitte Macron's enemies inevitably became his enemies, but so did her admirers and allies.
Indeed, Attal is the political son the Macrons never had together. As a president who will have already served two terms by the time the 2027 elections arrive, Macron cannot run again; so he sought a successor who would protect his legacy. In Gabriel Attal, Emmanuel and Brigitte found their angel.
Attal wasted no time in influencing education, particularly by fighting bullying (which he suffered as a child) and banning the abaya. from schools. This long, loose Islamic clothing is popular among Muslim girls, but it is contrary to the doctrine of secularism, which requires schools to ban religious symbols and clothing.
On multiculturalism, immigration and terrorism, Attal will take no prisoners. For a man who comes from a left-wing background (he began life as an activist in the now-moribund Socialist Party), he has surprisingly few reservations about cracking down on Islamists. He has a knack for winning over the bourgeoisie and working-class conservatives who are concerned that France is losing its identity.
However, this son of a Tunisian Jewish father and a Greek-Russian Orthodox mother is no stranger to cosmopolitan, but the culturally controversial capital that Paris has become.
Attal's meteoric rise through French meritocracy matches Macron's, but it seems less traditional. Among the intellectual and social snobs of the Parisian elite, the new Prime Minister is something of an outsider.
His Judeo-Christian background is more reminiscent of Nicolas Sarkozy, but with one significant difference: unlike the former President and his famous wife Carla Bruni Gabriel Attal are openly gay.
In France this still poses a much greater problem for politicians than in the UK. Ten years ago, the legalization of same-sex marriage was met with fierce resistance there, only to be pushed through by socialists despite huge protests led by the Catholic Church. He was never accepted by the socially conservative hinterland of deep France.
Stephane Sejournet will work alongside his former civil partner Attal as France's foreign minister. Photo: Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP
Attal knows he will have to rewrite the rules or face humiliation. After Attal took up his post at the venerable Matignon, Sejournet took up a post at the equally sacred Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the Quai d'Orsay.
The two politicians lived in a civil partnership for about seven years. They have impressed many by insisting that at official events and in the media they are treated just like any other couple.
Not everyone is a fan of Attal and Sejournet's self-confident style, but the head-turning the rise of the former seems to prove the saying: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. He was bullied at school, bullied by his rivals, and now he has the last laugh.
Upon his appointment to Matignon (the official residence of the Prime Minister), Attal tweeted that his mission was to «maintain control of our destiny, liberate French potential and rearm our country.»
For the British this language reminiscent of the Brexiteer slogan “Take back control”, but the call to “destiny” is very French. Napoleon loved such talk — for example, warning against excessive caution: “The pains of precaution often exceed the dangers to be avoided. Sometimes it’s better to surrender to fate.”
Attal, 34, succeeded Elisabeth Borne as prime minister last year Photo: Antoine Gyory — Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
Attal's focus on defense is significant because it is here that Macron has failed to offer strong leadership beyond France , but also in Europe. His claim that NATO is «brain dead» has damaged the alliance in the eyes of his adversary Vladimir Putin.
And after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Macron sent conflicting signals to Moscow and Kyiv. Although he has offered excellent words of support for Volodymyr Zelensky, French military support for the Ukrainian war effort lags far behind that of Germany and Britain.
Macron has apparently ordered Attal to embark on ambitious projects. French rearmament program. And in Ukraine? Silence.
There is potential for tension here. Attal may share Macron's desire to emulate the great wartime and postwar leader General de Gaulle by seeking to restore French military glory.
However, the leader of supposedly the strongest military power in the EU still holds a grudge over his exclusion from the AUKUS submarine deal and the Five Eyes intelligence sharing between English-speaking countries.
Because Putin is putting more than just Ukraine at risk , but also Europe from across the Black Sea to the Baltic, now is not the time for posturing and indignation of Macron.
Attal and Séjournet are smart enough to realize that their patron not only failed to restore respect for France, but also sowed distrust by undermining the Atlantic Alliance in favor of a chimera of a European army. Following the resignation of Angela Merkel, Macron missed a unique opportunity to show Europe and America what true leadership looks like.
Instead, in the days following the Russian invasion, it was Boris Johnson who mobilized support for Ukraine and visited Kyiv first.
< p>Putin's propaganda machine is now falsely claiming that the British Prime Minister prevented Zelensky from accepting Russia's peace offer in April 2022. At the time, Macron was still talking to Putin. Last month, he again left the door open: if Putin calls with a peace proposal, “I will take the call.”
Like his role model De Gaulle, Macron is deluding himself that he can hold out. besides NATO and play the role of an honest broker with the Kremlin. However, there is a risk that he will be considered what Lenin called a “useful idiot.”
Macron met personally with Putin shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine. Photo: KREMLIN POOL/SPUTNIK/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Whatever Attal may think in private, international affairs and war are unlikely to come between him and Macron for the simple reason that French prime ministers have very little control over them. According to the constitution adopted by De Gaulle in 1958, national security and foreign policy are the prerogative of the executive president.
In practice, the French President not only appoints the Prime Minister, but also uses him as a shield. After being criticized for unpopular presidential policies, prime ministers are ruthlessly dumped — just as Macron dumped Elizabeth Bourne, whose prestige never recovered after mass protests against his pension reform.
Surviving in Matignon while being subordinate to the Elysee Palace is such a thankless task that so far only two prime ministers of the Fifth Republic have become president: Georges Pompidou and Jacques Chirac.
If Attal wants to join this select group, he Macron will have to be convinced of his tireless devotion. The hyperactive president always enjoyed watching his courtiers compete for his favor. Like Louis XIV, he expects to dominate culture and society as much as he dominates politics and diplomacy.
The Sun King was only 16 when he declared to Parliament in Paris: “L'État c'est moi” – an opinion certainly shared by “Jupiter” Macron.
In a scene from In his novel Serotonin, set in 2017, France's leading writer Michel Houellebecq was struck by the «almost unbearable energy emanating from the Republic of March,» the new centrist party that brought Macron to the presidency.
< br />Encouraged by all this energy, Attal made a name for himself as a representative of En Marche and continues to work feverishly in his post.
But there may come a time when the master begins to view the student as a threat. A striking recent example of this phenomenon was the relationship between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
They got along great at first, with the “sloppy Rishi” playing second fiddle to Boris as the generous Covid Chancellor. Once Sunak's popularity surpassed that of the Prime Minister, who was by then mired in Partygate, the relationship quickly soured. The mixture of ambition, envy and testosterone is flammable.
The age difference between Attal and Macron (12 years) is not unlike the age difference between Sunak and Johnson (16 years). If the polarity between Elisha and Matignon follows the same pattern as between 10 and 11 Downing Street, we can expect to see signs of rivalry within two years — or even sooner, given Attal is already far more popular than Macron .
But the Rishi Sunak case is also a reminder that once you oust the person you owe everything to, it becomes much more difficult to remain popular. Sunak is now almost as disliked by voters as Boris Johnson was at his nadir.
How long will “mini-Macron” be content to languish in the shadows? The new darling of the chic company not only does not rub his star dust on the president, but can also outshine the aging matinee idol. What then?
However, a much more immediate threat to both men comes from right-wing nationalists in the form of Marine Le Pen and her right-hand man Jordan Bardella. Attal is Macron's response to Bardella's emergence as president of the National Rally.
At 28, this scion of poor Italian immigrants is even younger than Attalus; he certainly had a much less privileged start to life. Bardella entered the Sorbonne but dropped out to campaign for the party he joined at 16, then called the National Front.
Jordan Bardella turned out to be Marine Le Pen's skilled right hand. Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images
The ivory tower of Sciences Po, grande école for future mandarins and politicians, including Attalus, was not for him. Growing up in the suburbs, Bardella proved adept at solving the problems that arise in the grim public housing projects that surround Paris and other cities.
After the city of Trapp elected a Muslim mayor, Bardella named him mayor. “Islamic Republic” – and shrugged off subsequent persecution.
After a rapid rise in the European Parliament, he became Marine Le Pen’s deputy. While she ran for president in 2022, he took over control of the party.
Having lost to Macron twice, Le Pen can be forgiven for having mixed feelings about the young National Rally challenger, but so far he has shown no sign of wanting to challenge her dominance.
Le Pen's Distaste To her. Family — especially her father Jean-Marie and her niece Marion Maréchal, who heads Reconquista, her own even more radical party — far outweighs any jealousy she may feel towards her young protégé.
As for Attal and Bardella, their rivalry is about to get much more intense. This June they will face each other in European elections that will decide whether the balance of power in the EU will shift decisively towards the nationalist right.
In the rivalry between the grandes écoles and the university In his life, Attal now holds in his The levers of power are in his hands, but Bardella can claim to be winning the battle of ideas. Slowly but surely, Macron is gravitating toward a nationalist ideology—the Gallic version of “Make America Great Again.”
Last month, with Macron's blessing, the National Assembly passed an immigration bill that for the first time enshrined in French law the principle of «national preference» in housing and social security, giving French citizens preferential treatment over foreigners while cracking down on illegal migrants.< br />
Bardella took responsibility for this law, rightly stating that it would never have been passed without the Rassemblement Nationale Nationale's tireless defense against the left's accusations of racism and xenophobia.
If Attal cannot reverse current trends, The National Rally is likely to win the most votes in the European elections, eclipsing Macron's renaissance. This will increase Marine Le Pen's chances in the next presidential elections in 2027.
Even sooner, Bardella will be able to replace Attalus in Matignon. With Renaissance lacking a majority in the National Assembly, there are rumors that Macron may call early parliamentary elections in hopes of breaking the deadlock.
But if the National Rally were to win such an election, Bardella could find himself as prime minister in a «coexistence» agreement with Macron — as happened in 1986-88, when Gaullist Jacques Chirac was prime minister under Socialist President François Mitterrand. br />
The resurgence of French nationalists would be less alarming if they made a more convincing attempt to «detoxify» their brand — as, for example, Giorgia Meloni did with her Brothers of Italy.
The National Front can now call itself National unification, but he cannot shake off his long history of nostalgia for Vichy France, implacable hostility towards the Muslim minority and deep-rooted anti-Semitism.
A spate of attacks on French Jews during the current war between Israel and Gaza prompted Bardella to defend his party's founder in a television interview. Jean-Marie Le Pen, he said, was not an anti-Semite, despite being convicted and fined for comments such as dismissing the gas chambers as «a detail of history» or the Nazi occupation as «not particularly inhumane.»
Parisians hold a banner reading «We march against anti-Semitism» after a surge in attacks across France. Photo: THOMAS SAMSON/AFP via Getty Images
Bardella himself is not an anti-Semite; moreover, he made it clear that «for me, the Shoah [Holocaust] is not a detail of history.»
But the half-Jewish Attal did not lose sight of the fact that his main opponent in the European elections made it a point to defend the veteran Vichy apologist who collaborated with the Nazis and deported French Jews to death camps.
The most alarming thing is that Le Pen and the National Rally are firmly in the pro-Putin camp of the European right-wing nationalists. In the 2022 televised presidential debate, Macron referred to the Russian loan to Rally when he told Le Pen that «you are talking to your banker» as she spoke to the Kremlin.
Although that loan has now been repaid, there is growing evidence that the National Rally has acted as what the parliamentary inquiry called a “transmission belt” for Moscow. Bardella tried to limit the damage by admitting that his party had demonstrated «a collective naivety about Vladimir Putin's intentions.»
But there is no evidence that the party has changed. When the Washington Post investigated Russian political interference in France, a spokesman for the National Rally took refuge in a conspiracy theory, dismissing its damning findings as the work of a “conspiracy.”
Last week, Anglo-American forces launched coordinated attacks on Yemen-based Houthi pirates who are targeting ships in the Red Sea. But French warships and aircraft were nowhere to be seen in this operation, despite maintaining a presence in the region.
The absence of the French speaks volumes about the Macron administration's failure to fulfill its responsibilities to protect the West. values and interests — in particular the rule of law, not only on the high seas, but also in Ukraine and Israel.
Macron has made little effort to persuade his EU partners to hand over a €50bn (£43bn) package to Kyiv. Without US and EU help, Zelensky warned this week, Ukraine will not be able to win.
Can the dynamic duo of Attal and Séjournet convince Macron that the West cannot allow France to be its weakest link ? This seems unlikely. But if these three musketeers of the liberal elite get scared, not only will history judge them harshly: French voters might do the same.
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