His father, Yves Attal, was a lawyer and film producer of half Alsatian Jewish and half Tunisian Jewish descent. His mother, Marie de Couriss, was of French and Greek-Russian ancestry.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday appointed 34-year-old Education Minister Gabriel Attal as his new Prime Minister as he seeks to breathe new life into his second mandate ahead of European elections later this year.
The appointment came following the resignation of Elizabeth Borne who had to cope with two controversial reforms on pension and immigration.
Macron seeks to improve the chances of his centrist party in the June EU elections as Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party leading in the polls. He is struggling with a more turbulent parliament since losing his absolute majority shortly after being reelected in 2022.
Attal is a close Macron ally who was government spokesperson, Minister of Public Action and Accounts and Minister of National Education and Youth since July 2023. He is one of the most popular politicians in the country.
“Dear @GabrielAttal, I know I can count on your energy and your commitment to implement the project of revitalisation and regeneration that I announced,” said Macron.
There is media speculation that he might be a candidate to succeed Macron in the 2027 French presidential election.
Attal is France’s youngest Prime Minister and the first to be openly gay.
His father, Yves Attal, was a lawyer and film producer of half Alsatian Jewish and half Tunisian Jewish descent. His mother, Marie de Couriss, was of French and Greek-Russian ancestry.
During his political career, Attal has been the subject of antisemitic and homophobic hate speech on social media.
Last October, during a visit to the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Sarcelles, a Paris suburb, as Education Minister, Gabriel Attal warned that the government “will not let anything pass” in the face of growing anti-Semitic attacks and remarks in schools in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
“The priority for the French education system today is to ensure the safety and serenity of our schools,” he declared alongside Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
He mentioned “alerts that have come back to us in recent hours and days, with pupils of the Jewish faith who may have been the object of aggression in their establishment” and “calls that may have been relayed from collectives to come and leaflet or demonstrate in front of educational establishments”. “From this point of view, we will be totally intractable, we will not let anything pass,” he insisted.