Everything is already there. Rhetorical ease, like a sense of repartee. The speech rate is certainly a little rapid and some words are eaten up. But what talent! In this spring of 2012, a few weeks before the presidential election, Gabriel Attal is a student at Sciences Po Paris. The socialist activist debates opposite Maxime Cordier, himself a representative of the UMP. The game is immortalized by a school camera. Gabriel Attal, François Hollande’s program in hand, praises his candidate and attacks Nicolas Sarkozy’s record. The impudent even evokes a sketch of Information puppets to reprimand the head of state. But the debate is not at loggerheads. Smiles and barbs betray the complicity of the two men.
Macronism has since done its work. Maxime Cordier is now chief of staff of the new Minister of National Education. A sign of overcoming divisions or an ideological shift? “I am in no way denying my primary commitment to the PS, but today I find myself in the central space of political overcoming which was opened by the president,” confides Gabriel Attal to L’Express.
On September 12, Gabriel Attal certainly did not have to talk much about Nicolas Sarkozy’s puppet. He was received for lunch by the former president, who extended the invitation the day after yet another political coup by the minister. The thirty-year-old announced on August 27 on TF1 the ban on the abaya, this long dress worn by young Muslim students, at school. The measure is acclaimed by the French, its announcement eclipses the return of Gérald Darmanin to Tourcoing. The Minister of the Interior warned his colleague by SMS that he would support this decision, a few days before its formalization. The message went unanswered.
“For a left-wing guy, you’re more right-wing than me!”
During this lunch, did the ex-president tell him what had inspired him when he was in Beauvau? A television report on the Iraq War at the time showed an American plane dropping decoys into the sky to attract anti-missile missiles. He did the same to the Interior: in some of his texts, he sometimes added an element without a direct link to the subject but which had the advantage of speaking to his camp or to public opinion, of attracting the eye to leave the free space for other operations.
Perhaps the abaya is one of these lures. His ban shed light on the beginnings of Gabriel Attal on rue de Grenelle. The right-wing leaders measure the symbolic dimension of this announcement, breaking with the policy led by Pap Ndiaye. “His 20 Hours was really perfect, he ticked all the possible boxes,” exclaims Xavier Bertrand in private. The president of the Republicans (LR) Eric Ciotti had fun with the person concerned. “For a guy from the left, you are more to the right than me! If you were from the right, what would it be like…” The LR hierarchy has a crush on Attal, the people on the right too. 76% of LR supporters trust the new Minister of Education (compared to 49% of French people), according to an Odoxa survey.
“We chose to have a fairly firm speech on authority and the return of order,” assumes a close friend of the minister. This quest is strong in a country that leans to the right. Like a surfer on the lookout for the best wave, Gabriel Attal watches for water movements. So it will be the authority. When he attacks school bullying – a consensual fight – it is with a martial tone. “Fear must change sides,” he told the Assembly on September 26. “There can be no serenity without authority,” he asserts after the arrest in his class of a schoolboy suspected of harassment.
The young minister finally admonishes the rectorate of Versailles, sending a threatening letter to the parents of Nicolas, a 15-year-old schoolboy who was harassed and committed suicide. “He shakes up the administration. It speaks to the subconscious of the guy on the right,” notes the Renaissance deputy for Bas-Rhin (ex LR) Charles Sitzenstuhl. Mastering the fundamentals, another priority of Gabriel Attal, is also in the DNA of the right. “The expectation of authority is not specific to the right-wing electorate, slips the Minister of Education. In the same way, when I defend secularism, the mastery of fundamental knowledge or the fight against harassment, I’m not choosing one side or another.”
Exchanges with LR elected officials
No radical changes here. The man has never turned bright red. At Sciences Po, this well-born young man belongs to a healthy left, hardly the antipodes of the right. “It wasn’t the guy in harem pants from Unef who came to bawl in the lecture hall,” laughs a former student. Neither in the Assembly. He does not belong to the left wing of the majority, despite his socialist past. From 2018, he criticized “greviculture” when examining railway reform or the “selfish and bohemian” attitude of students blocking universities. His time at the Ministry of Public Accounts illustrates this mobility. Last spring, Gabriel Attal launched an anti-fiscal fed-up operation called “En avoir pour mes taxes”, which suggests a consumerist vision of public service. His announcements against social fraud met with more response than those against tax fraud.
The Republicans got to know the ambitious minister. At Bercy, Gabriel Attal established relationships of trust with members of the Finance Commission, such as Véronique Louwagie. He recently met with deputies from the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education. The minister also enjoys more informal discussions with right-wing executives. Here, an interview with LR n°3 Annie Genevard. There, discussions with the deputy for Loire Antoine Vermorel. We discuss the political situation and work under a relative majority. On September 8, 2023, Gabriel Attal inaugurated with Laurent Wauquiez a Colonel Arnaud-Beltrame high school in Meyzieu (Rhône). The two men hardly know each other, but are on the same wavelength. Thus the boss of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes announces the candidacy of his region to experiment with uniforms in high schools, an avenue on which the minister is working. “He understood the French aspiration for firmness. This goes beyond the left or the right, notes a close friend of Laurent Wauquiez. But it is certain that he has no qualms towards left !”
The deprived right
This meteor is a headache for the right. She wants to differentiate herself from the executive, but has no control over a minister who straddles her themes and her words. Pap Ndiaye was the dream opponent, Gabriel Attal an elusive competitor. Engulfed in the depths of the sea, it is reduced to detecting a cultural victory in its rise. “This shows the shift in the political spectrum towards the right. A former PS member speaks like a UNI guy fifteen years ago,” notes LR vice-president Guilhem Carayon. That’s always the case.
The majority has an ambiguous admiration for one of the only revelations of the Macron presidency. “He has intuition”: the phrase is repeated over and over by the Renaissance deputies. His political sense, his art of communication and his understanding of the aspirations of the French are praised. “He is the one, in the historic Macronie, who knew how to accompany the sociological evolution of the Macron electorate”, analyzes the deputy for Essonne Robin Reda.
“He talks to the right, but tomorrow that could change”
“Have intuition”, “feel the times”… The compliment has a double meaning. These attributes are often a disguise for the absence of deep thought. What is the ideological backbone of the Minister of Education? What are his beliefs? There it gets complicated. The Renaissance elected officials, ready to talk about his talent, let go. “He has insane ambition but no conviction about anything. He only does good things,” says a deputy. A minister, among his rivals, notes: “We have objectively moved more to the right, the country too, and that poses no problem for Gabriel.” Another colleague smiles: “Gabriel decided some time ago that he was no longer left-wing but center-right. Because he dreams of becoming president or prime minister in a short time.”
Before entering the Elysée, you still have to deal with the morning radio shows. This July 13, 2023, the former Minister of Public Accounts is a guest on RTL. He welcomes the “very good report” made by deputies Robin Reda and Véronique Louwagie on the subject of the reduction in state spending. Back in the constituency, the MP for Orne was questioned by a voter: “The minister quoted you on the radio… But is he from the right or the left?” The citizens, too, have understood this: Macronism is polyphonic and Gabriel Attal adapts perfectly to its plasticity. “He is a true Macronist product of ‘At the same time’, notes a majority executive. He speaks to the right, but tomorrow that could change.” Véronique Louwagie cannot help but report the anecdote to Gabriel Attal by SMS. He enjoys it; replies, in essence, that it improves like good wine. Should we conclude that it has not yet reached its vintage?