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Attal gave his first major speech to Parliament Tuesday, pledging to support farmers and workers.
France’s first out gay prime minister says the widespread acceptance he’s enjoyed shows how much the country has evolved.
The nation was “tearing itself apart just 10 years ago over same-sex marriage,” but “being French in 2024 means ... being able to be prime minister and openly gay,” Gabriel Attal said Tuesday in his first major address to Parliament, Agence France-Presse reports.
This is “proof our country is moving and mindsets are evolving,” he told the National Assembly, the lower house of France’s Parliament.
Attal’s “orientation has caused barely a ripple” in France, according to AFP, which notes that any criticism of the new prime minister has centered on him being a “carbon copy” of President Emmanuel Macron.
Related: 18 pics of France's gay prime minister that will make you want to start learning French
Macron appointed Attal as prime minister three weeks ago, after Elisabeth Borne resigned. Attal had been education minister, a post in which he was the most popular politician in France, and before that he was minister of public works and public accounts. At 34, he is the youngest prime minister in modern French history.
His former civil union partner, Stéphane Séjourné, was recently named foreign minister as Macron reconfigured his cabinet.
In the speech to the National Assembly, Attal pledged to support farmers, who have been protesting over their declining incomes. He promised financial aid and limits on food imports, the Associated Press reports. He also said his government would urge employers to increase workers’ pay and would tie unemployment benefits to requirements for job training and internships. Work should pay more than “inactivity,” he said.
He additionally said he would seek to recruit more doctors to France, take steps to address bullying in schools, reduce government bureaucracy, and try out a four-day work week for his administration’s employees.
“To be French in 2024 is to live in a country” that is seeking “stability, justice, and peace,” he said.
