Gabriel Attal

Gabriel Nissim Attal de Couriss (; born 16 March 1989) is a French politician who was the prime minister of France from January to September 2024. He was the youngest and the first openly gay prime minister in French history. A member of the Renaissance party, he previously served in the French Parliament and in various ministerial positions.

Following his election to the National Assembly in the 2017 French legislative election, Attal became the junior minister to the minister of national education and youth in 2018, which made him the youngest person to serve in the Government of France since the establishment of the Fifth Republic. He later served as the spokesperson of the government in 2020; the minister of public action and accounts in 2022; and the minister of national education and youth in 2023. On 9 January 2024, amid a major government crisis, Attal was appointed to replace Élisabeth Borne as the prime minister by French president Emmanuel Macron, at age 34.

In June 2024, Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called a snap election following the defeat suffered by his political alliance in the 2024 European Parliament election. Attal led the ruling Ensemble coalition into the 2024 legislative election which resulted in another hung parliament and electoral defeat for the government. On 7 July 2024, Attal announced his resignation as prime minister; accepted by President Macron on 16 July 2024. He remained as head of a caretaker government until Michel Barnier succeeded him on 5 September 2024.

Early life and education

Attal was born on 16 March 1989 in Clamart, Île-de-France. He grew up in the 13th and 14th arrondissements of Paris with three sisters. His father, Yves Attal, was a lawyer and film producer; his mother, Marie de Couriss, worked as an employee of a film production company. His father was Jewish and his mother a Russian Orthodox Christian; Attal was raised in his mother's Orthodox Christian faith.

Attal attended the École alsacienne, an exclusive private school in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. He obtained a Baccalauréat with a " Mention Très Bien" in 2007. He went on to study law at Panthéon-Assas University from 2008 to 2011, and earned a Master of Public Affairs from Sciences Po in 2012. He also spent a year (2009–2010) working with Éric de Chassey, director of the French Academy in Rome.

His earliest political activity was participation in the 2006 youth protests in France. Taking up a place at Sciences Po in 2007, he created a committee for the support of Íngrid Betancourt, the Franco-Colombian hostage held by the FARC.

Political career

Early political career

After an internship at the French National Assembly with Marisol Touraine during the 2012 presidential campaign, Attal worked for five years as an assistant to the Minister of Health, a role which involved parliamentary liaison and speechwriting.

In the 2014 municipal elections, Attal was placed fifth on the Socialist Party list. He was elected as one of the four Socialist Party councillors of Vanves and took over the lead of the opposition, after the resignation of the head of the socialist list.

Member of the National Assembly (2017–2018)

Attal was elected to the French National Assembly on 18 June 2017, representing the Hauts-de-Seine's 10th constituency, winning out over the designated successor of André Santini.

Attal was quickly considered one of the most talented new members of parliament, with Amélie de Montchalin. As a deputy of the National Assembly, he became a member of the Committee on Cultural and Education Affairs, where he served as whip of the group La République En Marche!.

In December 2017, Attal was appointed rapporteur on a bill on access to higher education.

Attal was named chairperson of La République En Marche! in January 2018 and in September 2018, after the election of Richard Ferrand to the presidency of the National Assembly, he ran as a candidate to succeed him as president of the group La République En Marche!, but withdrew his candidacy the day before the election when he was considered one of the three favourites. He later endorsed Roland Lescure.

Government minister (2018–2024)

On 16 October 2018, Attal was appointed ''Secrétaire d'État'' (junior minister) to the Minister of National Education and Youth Jean-Michel Blanquer. At 29, he was the youngest member of a government under the Fifth Republic, beating the previous record set by François Baroin in 1995 by a few months. As a junior minister, he was responsible for youth issues and setting up universal national service. From 2020 to 2022, he was the government spokesperson under Prime Minister Jean Castex. He became Minister of Public Action and Accounts in the government of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne in May 2022.

In July 2023, Attal was appointed minister of national education and youth in the 2023 French government reshuffle. At the age of 34, he became the youngest person to hold that office under the Fifth Republic. In this position, he announced the ban on abayas under the "principle of secularism", extending a ban on religious symbols in French public schools that already included Christian crosses, Jewish Kippahs and Islamic veils.

Prime Minister (2024)

Attal and German chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on 5 February 2024
Following Borne's resignation as prime minister on 8 January 2024, media sources announced Attal as favourite to succeed her. His appointment as Prime Minister was announced on 9 January 2024. At the age of 34, he became the youngest and the first openly gay person to hold the office in France.

Lacking a parliamentary majority as a result of the 2022 legislative election, Attal formed a minority government, the second one since the start of the Macron Presidency. He appointed what was widely described as the most right-leaning cabinet since Macron took office, with over half of his senior ministers previously coming from the conservative UMP/LR party.

At the beginning of his tenure as prime minister, Attal was seen as one of the most popular politicians in France. The French media speculated that he was a potential contender in the 2027 presidential election.

On 16 January 2024, Attal announced that, like Élisabeth Borne before him, he would not be seeking a vote of confidence in the National Assembly as implicitly allowed in the French Constitution.

On 9 June 2024, Macron called a snap election after his party's disappointing results in the 2024 European Parliament election. Although he was not in agreement with Macron's decision, Attal took on the leadership of Macron's
Ensemble alliance's election campaign. In the first round of voting on 30 June, Ensemble won only 20.0% of the votes, in third place behind the far-right National Rally (RN) with 33.3% and the left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP) with 28.0%, which constituted the worst electoral performance for a ruling coalition in a general election since the establishment of the Third Republic in 1870. Attal said that the priority was to prevent NR from gaining an absolute majority in the National Assembly and asked Ensemble candidates in third place against NR in their constituencies to withdraw from the second round of voting. The second round of voting on 7 July resulted in Ensemble winning 168 seats, behind NFP with 182 and ahead of RN with 143. Attal offered his resignation to the president the following morning, only for it to be refused by Macron, who asked him to stay on for the time being in order to maintain the stability of the country. Attal retained his own seat in the Hauts-de-Seine's 10th constituency with 58.2% of the vote in a contest against NFP candidate Cécile Soubelet.

On 13 July 2024, Attal was elected unopposed as leader of the Renaissance Party in the National Assembly with the support of 84 of the 98 Renaissance members. Macron formally accepted Attal's resignation on 16 July 2024, but at the same time asked him to remain in place as head of a caretaker government.

Post-premiership (2024–present)

On 5 September 2024, President Macron appointed Michel Barnier as the new prime minister. At the handover ceremony the following day, Attal made a speech in which he expressed his frustration at having had only eight months in office – too little time to see any of his plans come to fruition. On leaving the office of prime minister, he took on leadership of Macron's party in the National Assembly. Attal's tenure as prime minister is the third-shortest under the Fifth Republic, after Michel Barnier and Bernard Cazeneuve.

Personal life

In 2018, Attal was outed on Twitter by his former École alsacienne classmate Juan Branco. Attal lived in a civil union with Stéphane Séjourné at the time. Their relationship had ended by 2024. When they were both attending the École alsacienne, Attal had a relationship with singer Joyce Jonathan, but Jonathan said that the relationship was merely "a joke between us" and "a playtime crush". Attal said in a TV interview that he had been subjected to homophobic bullying at school. He has also described being the target of homophobic and antisemitic hate speech on social media as a politician. Attal has also been criticized by LGBT rights organizations for not being outspoken enough about his sexuality and the promotion of LGBT rights. Though baptized as a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, Attal considers himself an atheist.

Ancestry

Attal's father was of Tunisian Jewish and Alsatian Jewish descent. His mother is of French and Greek-Russian ancestry from Odesa, her grandfather having arrived in France as a White Russian émigré. Genealogists have found both French and Russian nobility, including members of the La Forest-Divonne family in France and the House of Golitsyn in Russia, amongst her ancestors. Through his mother, Attal is descended from King Charles VI of France and Queen consort Isabeau of Bavaria, who signed the Treaty of Troyes of 1420, which made King Henry V of England heir to the French throne during the Hundred Years' War.

See also

* List of Jewish heads of state and government
* List of openly LGBT heads of state and government
* List of state leaders by age: youngest serving state leaders
* Second Philippe government

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Attal, Gabriel
Gabriel Attal
1989 births
Living people
Deputies of the 15th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic
Deputies of the 17th National Assembly of the French Fifth Republic
Government ministers of France
Renaissance (French political party) politicians
People from Clamart
Politicians from Île-de-France
Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas University alumni
French people of Tunisian-Jewish descent
French people of Greek descent
French people of Russian descent
Sciences Po alumni
LGBTQ legislators in France
LGBTQ government ministers
LGBTQ heads of government
French gay politicians
Members of the Borne government
21st-century French LGBTQ people
Budget ministers of France
Ministers of national education of France
Prime ministers of France
Former Russian Orthodox Christians
French atheists
French former Christians
Members of the Attal government
Members of Parliament for Hauts-de-Seine