France is ready to elect its first openly gay president. That is the belief of Gabriel Attal, who discusses his homosexuality in the memoir that was published yesterday. Attal became the first gay prime minister of the Republic when he was nominated by Emmanuel Macron in January 2024. At 34, he was also the youngest, a man described as a ‘mini Macron’.
Attal is busily promoting his oeuvre – En Homme Libre (As a Free Man) – with media interviews and book-signing appearances. He told one radio station yesterday that being gay was ‘not at all’ a barrier to becoming president. ‘Our country is more open and tolerant than it realises,’ declared Attal.
When I became Prime Minister and was the first head of government to be open about my homosexuality, I also saw just how commonplace it had become.
Perhaps in the Paris bubble. In the provinces, however, and among the immigrant-heavy inner cities, voters may be less tolerant than Attal imagines.
No one was more devoted to Macron in the early days than Attal
But his sexuality isn’t Attal’s biggest impediment to becoming president; it’s the fact that for great swathes of voters Attal will always be ‘mini Macron’. So despised is the President that his former acolytes – no matter how frantically they are now trying to distance themselves from the man in the Elysee – will forever be tarnished by association.
And no one was more devoted to Macron in the early days than Attal. Both were members of the Socialist party in their 20s and he was one of the first to jump ship to Macron’s nascent En Marche party in 2016.
The following year he was one of Macron’s 351 MPs elected to parliament. At the time I resided in his Paris constituency; I would see Attal out and about on the campaign trail. He looks like what he is: a Parisian technocrat.
Attal, in the words of one newspaper headline, hopes that this book will ‘cut the cord with Emmanuel Macron’. Yet his denunciations of his mentor are relatively mild. He criticises his decision to call a snap election in June 2024, a decision that not only ended Attal’s brief tenure as PM but has resulted in nearly two years of political paralysis. He also expresses disappointment at the failure of the President to ‘revolutionise’ France as he had promised in 2016.
‘A lot of French people were enthusiastic at the idea that everyone could participate in the transformation of the country,’ writes Attal. ‘It did not happen.’ But, he proclaims, ‘I have clear ideas for France.’
The French have had their fill of Macron’s ‘extreme centrism’. Since 2017, immigration, insecurity and the public debt have all rocketed to record levels. Public services have deteriorated, the economy has stagnated and sovereignty has been eroded by an ever more unpopular Brussels. Up until 2024, Attal was Macron’s most vociferous cheerleader.
A recent presidential poll reported that Attal had the support of only 11.5 per cent of voters, way behind the 38 per cent enjoyed by Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen. Even the far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon boasts a better approval rating than Attal.
Attal’s first book signing was at a store in the upmarket 16th arrondissement of Paris. It was the same bookshop where former president Nicolas Sarkozy appeared last December to sign copies of his prison memoir. On that occasion the public were queuing round the corner; yesterday Attal had to bring in some of his party workers to boost the numbers.
Last week Attal was featured on the cover of a current affairs magazine above the headline ‘I know how to lead France’. He may think he does; unfortunately for Attal, the vast majority of the Great French Public don’t agree.
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