Can ‘mini Macron’ rescue France’s president?

France’s Emmanuel Macron, the Fifth Republic’s youngest president, has just appointed its youngest prime minister, 34-year-old Gabriel Attal. The former socialist turned 2017 Macronista campaigner has had a meteoric rise through government ranks to education minister only six months ago. Attal’s remarkable communication skills, ability to think on his feet and interpret what voters wish to hear has made him Macron’s most popular minister.

But this is a further desperate roll of the dice for a beleaguered Macron. The French leader has been deprived of a working majority since the 2022 legislative elections and forced to get his legislation by constitutional sleight of hand avoiding parliamentary votes 23 times. That legislation on pension and social reform has been broadly unpopular generating widespread strikes, followed last July by the worst riots for over fifty years deep into the sinews of provincial France, la France profonde. Macron’s party trails Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National by ten points in opinion polls and is braced for a trouncing in the June European elections.