France
President Macron appoints new prime minister
French President Emmanuel Macron replaces his Prime Minister. photo
© Christophe Ena/AP Pool/dpa
After days of speculation, there is a change at the top of France’s government. President Macron replaces Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne. Her successor is expected to be appointed today.
After days of speculation, Borne submitted the centrist government’s resignation after a conversation with Macron in the presidential palace in the evening. It is expected that Macron will stick to many of the heavyweights of the previous government and perhaps only make new appointments in some places.
Macron hopes for a liberation
The promising candidate for Borne’s successor is the political whiz kid Gabriel Attal, who was known to the French as a government spokesman and most recently headed the Ministry of Education when he was just 34 years old. Attal is considered quite popular and has the reputation of being able to discuss the matter with representatives of other political camps.
Acting Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu is also being traded. However, the 37-year-old is reportedly too conservative for some in the Macron camp. Opportunities are also attributed to the 43-year-old former agriculture minister Julien Denormandie, who, like Macron, comes from the left and is an early companion of the president.
Macron, who has no longer had an absolute majority in the National Assembly since the 2022 parliamentary elections and is dependent on votes from the opposition, is seeking a liberation strike. He ultimately pushed through the highly controversial pension reform last year without a final vote in the National Assembly. Most recently, there were difficulties in December with the new immigration law, another of the president’s key plans.