“He’s a brilliant young man… He responds to everything, we feel the politician who comes to do his job and fights one step at a time. » This description of Gabriel Attal is not given by a zealous Macronist but by the MP and spokesperson for the National Rally (RN) Alexandra Masson, a year ago, when the thirty-year-old still held the post of budget minister.
Many on the far right believe the new prime minister is described as the antithesis of his predecessor Elisabeth Borne. Unlike the former tenant of Matignon, they find him neither unsympathetic, nor sectarian, nor even arrogant. They even took pity on him when, before the end of year holidays, the thirty-year-old showed signs of fatigue on the benches of the Assembly: “Miskine [le pauvre, en argot] Attal » had become his nickname on the Lepéniste benches.
Within the party, the meteoric trajectory of the former socialist is sometimes compared to that of the movement’s president, Jordan Bardella, as is his ability to appropriate elements of language and to spout punchlines which will delight activists on social networks. “They are both young workers and talented, very careful, says Sébastien Chenu, a close friend of Marine Le Pen, about them. Gabriel Attal has all the qualities to please Macronie, particularly because he has no convictions. » From his perch as vice-president of the Assembly, he punctuates the most laborious sessions of ribald exchanges with the minister, in the confidentiality of small words transmitted by the ushers. Jean-Philippe Tanguy, another executive of the Lepéniste parliamentary group, is not left out in these very unpolitical exchanges.
More formidable than Darmanin
Responsible for economic issues within the group, the deputy for the Somme saw Gabriel Attal playing politics from the fifth floor of the “fortress” of Bercy: since then, he has whispered to anyone who will listen on the far right that the former budget minister is formidable, more so than Gérald Darmanin or Edouard Philippe. “He’s very smart. He always remains calm, keeps a smile, speaks like us without ever insulting us and comes to our lands in a much more subtle way than others, which makes the fight more complicated. » At Bercy, Gabriel Attal promises “a Marshall plan for the middle classes” – since victim of the fight against the deficit – which is also an anti-RN plan, on this very coveted electorate.
In national education, he almost makes the RN deputy Roger Chudeau choke, who cries plagiarism by listing the young minister’s announcements: ban on wearing the abaya, experimentation with wearing the uniform, return of repeating a year , patent reform, end of the single college, return to the transmission of fundamentals…
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