Gabriel Attal
Gabriel Nissim Attal is a French politician who has served as the General Secretary of Renaissance since December 2024 and president of the Renaissance group in the National Assembly since September 2024. He previously served as the prime minister of France from January to September 2024. He was the youngest and the first openly gay prime minister in French history. He previously served in various ministerial positions.
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,[a] worked as an employee of a film production company. Attal's father was Jewish, 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 and the House of Dolgorukov in Russia, amongst her ancestors. Through his mother, Attal is descended from King Charles VI of France. 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.
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.
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.[b] 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.
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. In 2025, Attal proposed a bill to outlaw the wearing of an Islamic headscarf by minors in public spaces. He stated: "No one can believe that a little girl chooses to wear a veil; it is obviously something imposed upon her." In May 2026, Attal formally launched his candidacy for the 2027 French presidential election. During his announcement, he voiced support for starting a national debate in France over surrogacy, a move which drew condemnation from various ministers in both sides of the political aisle. Civil society groups warned that the legislation of surrogacy in France would have ramifications across Europe.
Domestic policy
Attal supports a more controlled approach to immigration, with a greater emphasis on labour immigration while reducing and more tightly regulating family reunification. He is a strong supporter of laïcité (French secularism). As Minister of National Education, he notably introduced a ban on abayas in public schools, arguing that the measure was necessary to uphold secularism in the education system. Attal has advocated policies aimed at encouraging recipients of social benefits to return to employment. He supported extending the reform of the Revenu de solidarité active (RSA), including a requirement for beneficiaries to undertake at least 15 hours per week of employment, training, or other integration-related activities. He has also opposed experiments with a four-day workweek.
Foreign policy
Attal is a strong supporter of Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s invasion, arguing that financial support for Ukraine should be viewed as an investment rather than an expense. He has also expressed support for seizing Russian assets held in France. In March 2025, he called for Europe to use more than €200 billion in frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine's war effort. Attal is strongly pro-European and has advocated for a more integrated United States of Europe capable of standing up to both China and the United States. He also supports the concept of a multi-speed Europe, arguing that a smaller group of EU member states should take the lead in establishing a Capital Markets Union.
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 2022. They got back together in 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, implying that the culprit was Branco, though Branco denied this. He has also described being the target of homophobic and antisemitic hate speech on social media as a politician. Though baptized as a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, Attal considers himself an atheist.
