Latest news with #GabrielAttal
LeMonde
27-06-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
Former French PM Gabriel Attal: 'I do not see a shared vision for society today between Les Républicains and us'
As secretary general of French President Emmanuel Macron's party Renaissance, and president of the Ensemble Pour La République group in the Assemblée Nationale, Gabriel Attal has caused unease within his own political family by defending positions – such as on Muslim girls wearing the veil – that have brought him closer to the right. With just under two years to go before the presidential election, the former prime minister (January to September 2024) clarifies his political stance. How would you describe the current political moment? French political life is creating more and more orphans. First, because it is no longer seen as a solution but as a problem, due to a terrible sense of widespread powerlessness. The risk is that democracy in crisis could turn, over time, into a "vetocracy," where nothing gets done because public action is blocked on all sides. This whole framework needs to be re-examined. Then, because the two so-called "governing parties" – the Parti Socialiste (PS, left) and Les Républicains (LR, right wing) – have in recent weeks chosen a path of radicalization. They have buried their ability to bring together a majority of French people. On one side, the left has chosen political submission to the La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left); on the other, the right is drifting into intellectual alignment with the Rassemblement National (RN, far right).
The Guardian
23-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘We are waking from a long sleep': France's ex-PM Gabriel Attal on revitalising relations with the UK
In the conference room of a hotel in Kensington, the man who would be France's next head of state is sharing his views about Brexit. Microphone in hand, Gabriel Attal is here to meet activists and expatriates. Once 270,000 strong, London's French community has dwindled in recent years. The 36-year-old leader of Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party is doing his best to gee them up. 'We are waking at the moment from a long sleep when we talk about relations between France and the UK,' he says. In the face of war in Ukraine and turmoil in the US, old alliances are reforming. 'Many thought the channel would become an ocean. And that all the ties that bound us had to be cut. But we are emerging from this sleep because in some measure we are forced to.' In two years, when the term of his mentor, Macron, comes to an end, Attal is positioning himself to lead their centrist party into battle against Marine Le Pen's populists. If he succeeds, he would take not only Macron's crown but also his record as France's youngest-ever president. For now, he is launching himself on the international stage, with visits to Ukraine, Israel and later this year to Africa. In London last week, he was accompanied by his bodyguards and a team of smartly dressed young men, staffers and parliamentarians, graduates like him of France's elite Sciences Po university. During his visit he called on the former UK prime minister Tony Blair and laid a wreath at the statue of the French wartime leader Charles de Gaulle. On Wednesday evening in Kensington, in the heart of London's French quarter, he addressed his audience with the confidence and lyrical flow that have earned him the nickname of 'le snipeur des mots' – the word sniper. 'Liberty was given by the proponents of Brexit as a reason why they had to leave the European Union. But being free is not being able to choose the colour of your passport. It is about being able to choose the face of your destiny.' Attal's rise through the ranks has been a succession of firsts. At 29, he became the country's youngest postwar minister after being put in charge of education. At 34, in January 2024, he became prime minister, another record. He was cheered in the national assembly when he spoke of his pride at being the first out gay man to hold the office. It was a short-lived success – Attal's term came to a premature end last September after Macron called a snap election in a bungled attempt to see off the hard right. Dusted off and back in the saddle, he has not officially declared his candidacy for the presidential race in 2027, but he is fairly open about his intentions. Asked whether he would stand during an interview with the Guardian, Attal replied: 'J'y travaille.' (I'm working on it). The interview was supposed to be in person but London traffic intervened, and Attal, after a polite apology, spoke by phone from a car as he raced to catch the Eurostar train back home. His focus for now, he said, was on policy and party renewal. Renaissance has been churning out papers, with proposals to curb immigration and tackle teenage screen addiction. The party wants a social media ban for under-15s, and an internet curfew between 10pm and 8am for those under 18. Videos would switch to black and white after half an hour's viewing. 'I'm working with my party, Renaissance. I want us to have a project and a candidate. Many candidates for the presidency today don't have a project.' Gabriel Attal de Couriss followed a well-worn path through elite schools into the ranks of the political class. The son of Yves Attal, a lawyer and film producer, and Marie de Couriss, a film production worker from a family of traders who settled in Russia then Ukraine following the Bolshevik Revolution. He thrived despite the disruptions of divorce and his father's early death from cancer. After attending the exclusive École alsacienne private school, he studied public affairs at Sciences Po, the Paris university whose graduates include Macron and and a long list of presidents and prime ministers before him. His social politics are a mix of liberal and authoritarian. He voted to make access to abortion a constitutional right, but has legislated to curb the wearing of clothes associated with Islam. As education minister he banned the abaya for girls and the qamis for boys in schools. Last month, Attal proposed to go a step further, by outlawing headscarves in public for girls under 15. The reaction was swift and negative, with accusations he was just looking to grab headlines, and members of his own party distanced themselves. The Renaissance education minister expressed 'the most serious doubts' about asking police to question or even caution children in the street. Attal rejects the notion that designating the clothing worn by children as the latest culture-war battleground puts them at risk. 'I think that what puts a little girl in danger is to impose on her an outfit that consists in inculcating to her the idea that she is inferior to man and that it is impure for her to discover her face.' On immigration, he wants closer cooperation with the UK. He says Macron's state visit to Britain next month, during which the president will stay at Windsor Castle, will be an opportunity for bilateral talks. 'I think there are several subjects which are absolutely major on which we must move forward,' he said. He listed defence – 'the United Kingdom is part of the European continent and with France is one of the two countries that has a complete army' – the economy, energy and immigration. On the vexed question of access for UK arms firms to a new €150bn EU armaments fund, he was diplomatic. 'When it comes to EU financial instruments, they come first to support the European defence industry, and it will depend on financial participation, but I know this is being negotiated right now. I hope we can find a way to deepen the military cooperation with the UK.' He said the next big step would be discussion on how the UK can align with a new pact for asylum and immigration that will enter into force across the EU next summer. The agreement allows faster processing and triage of migrants at designated entry hubs. Importantly, each member state will take an agreed share of new arrivals, or pay countries of reception €20,000 to keep them. 'It is very important that we can identify the way in which this pact will be implemented in connection with the United Kingdom,' said Attal. 'I remind you that there is an estimate of 30% of immigrants who come to the European continent who do so to go to the United Kingdom.' For Ukraine, Attal wants an accelerated path to membership of the European Union. Hungary is threatening to use its veto, and farmers are worried about the continent's largest food-producing nation flooding the tariff-free single market with cheap agricultural produce. The pushback has delayed the accession talks, which were due to begin this month. In March, Attal hosted a summit in Paris with allies from the European parliament, and members of opposition parties in Hungary and Slovakia. They agreed to campaign for Ukrainian lawmakers to attend the parliament as observers, starting no later than 2026. Other measures included seizing the €200bn of Russian assets frozen in Europe to finance Ukrainian resistance and increasing defence budgets to 3% of domestic product. 'We have a situation that is obviously unprecedented, with a country attacked, at war, which wants to join the European Union. And therefore the procedure itself must be adapted.' Is he in favour of the parallel negotiation solution, which would allow progress without needing Hungary's approval, being suggested by some officials in Brussels? It seems so. 'I think all channels must be used,' Attal said. He spoke with the confidence of a man adept at finding his way around obstacles. The interview came to an end as his car approached St Pancras station. A call to the French embassy, and Attal and his bodyguards were whisked through security, making the 11.30am back to Paris with minutes to spare.
Local France
18-06-2025
- Business
- Local France
What's in France's new 'simplification' law?
The simplification bill was finally passed in the Assemblée nationale on Tuesday. The headline-grabber in the bill was an amendment to scrap the Low Emissions Zones in French cities - although that might still be open to challenge. READ ALSO Is this the end of France's Crit'Air zones for drivers? But there's a lot more in this bill, which has had a complicated life - introduced by Gabriel Attal's government last year and halted first by last summer's snap election, then the collapse of Michel Barnier government, it has had hundreds of amendments added and subtracted during its lengthy parliamentary journey. The bill contains 26 main measures intended to cut bureaucracy, and simplify administration, mostly aimed at businesses. It is based on a parliamentary report from February 2024 and was presented with an action plan that includes 26 other regulatory measures. Administration and and business life Governments can use decrees and ordinances to simplify administrative procedures and cut down the number of forms and procedures that businesses have to follow. More operations will be digitised, while the bill provides several policies to improve information sharing between government departments to reduce unnecessary duplication for businesses. Advertisement The government will also have to examine how future legislation might impact small and medium-sized businesses when bills are drafted. This should avoid brouhahas similar to the proposal to introduce lower VAT limits on micro-entrepreneurs . Under the terms of the bill, by 2028 all public procurement contracts – including those from hospitals and social security organisations – will be handled through a single online platform to give businesses better access to necessary public procurement information. To make it easier to sell companies with fewer than 50 employees, the legal period for employers to inform employees has been reduced to one month and the fine for failure to provide information has been reduced. And professional bank account services will also be improved, including the ability to close an account without charge. In terms of insurance, with regard to property damage, the draft law sets limits on the timeframes for compensating individual and professional policyholders at six months maximum from the date of the claim in cases where an expert is appointed, and two months in almost all other cases. In addition, it extends the obligation for insurers to justify their decision to unilaterally terminate business insurance contracts, and gives very small businesses and SMEs the right to terminate property insurance at any time after the first anniversary of the contract. Industrial and infrastructure projects To encourage the establishment of factories or energy transition projects, exemptions from common law are provided for in various areas, such as the installation of wind turbines or relay antennas, and compensation for damage to biodiversity caused by development projects, particularly industrial projects. Advertisement An amendment by the government will make it possible to recognise the imperative reason of major public interest much earlier in the development of projects, and supplemented to allow the recognition of the public interest status for projects that have already been declared – including the controversial A69 autoroute in south-west France. The bill provides, under certain conditions, for industrial-scale data centres to be classified as projects of major national interest, to speed up planning processes. The mandate of the National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties is also amended to take into account innovation issues in all areas of its work. Payslips Future payslips will be simplified under the remit of the bill to contain just 15 lines of information. Details about restaurant tickets and travel expenses will be available separately, but precise details have yet to be confirmed. READ ALSO : How to understand your French payslip✎ Advertisement Rural cafés The bill includes measures to make it easier to open cafés and bars in rural areas by making it simpler to get a type four alcohol licence, known as a Licence IV, which covers spirits and liquor. READ ALSO France moves to bring back village bars in bid to boost rural social lives Government mediation The bill includes measures to make complaints against the French administration system easier, with a 'generalisation' of mediation, while current deadlines in place on taking legal action against the government will be put on hold. Small businesses, micro-entrepreneurs and employees will certainly cheer several measures intended to make their daily lives easier, and the 'tell us once' policy that cuts out the duplication of required information will speed up certain processes, but at this stage it is difficult to judge how much simply life might become.
Yahoo
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
We have learnt nothing from the treatment of Alfred Dreyfus
On a winter morning in 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was brought to the Ecole Militaire in Paris. Convicted of treason, he was sentenced to deportation and life imprisonment; his epaulettes were torn off, his sword broken, and he was paraded before a jeering mob of onlookers. Dreyfus was Jewish, and virulent anti-Semitism within the army and wider society was central to his conviction on flimsy evidence. Despite a campaign by his supporters, including the novelist Emile Zola, Dreyfus was convicted a second time. He was not fully exonerated until 1906. At the end of An Officer and a Spy, his 2013 novel about the Dreyfus Affair, Robert Harris added an epilogue in which the newly exonerated Major Dreyfus meets General Picquart, the minister of war, to ask for promotion to lieutenant-colonel – the rank he should have achieved had it not been for his wrongful conviction. Picquart refuses: 'It is politically impossible.' Last week, the lower house of the French parliament unanimously approved a bill put forward by the former prime minister Gabriel Attal to grant Dreyfus retrospective promotion to the rank of brigadier general. Attal made it clear that the gesture was symbolic. 'The anti-Semitism that targeted Alfred Dreyfus is not in the distant past,' the legislation noted. 'Today's acts of hatred remind us that the fight is still ongoing.' But over this belated promotion there hovers the question that attends all symbolic gestures of political regret. Public acts of contrition are not a new phenomenon. In 1174, King Henry II did penance for the murder of Thomas Becket, entering Canterbury barefoot, where he was beaten by the attendant bishops and monks, and spent the night in prayer at Becket's tomb. Such acts might seem theatrical, but they do at least acknowledge that contrition needs to take some tangible form. Words are not enough. This is something that modern politicians struggle to grasp. Their enthusiasm for making grand, frictionless expressions of regret for historical wrongs (the slave trade; the Amritsar massacre) seems to have grown as their appetite for taking responsibility for injustices that have occurred on their own watch (the Post Office and infected-blood scandals, to name just two) has dwindled. Lord Carrington's resignation as foreign secretary in 1982, over Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands, may have been the last recorded example of a politician resigning from a sense of noblesse oblige. Since then, we have become more accustomed to the spectacle of our legislators clinging like bindweed to office, until the glyphosate of public opinion finally withers them. In 2009, the then foreign-office minister Lord Malloch-Brown artlessly admitted that 'British politicians don't know how to say sorry'. But they've upped their game since then, perfecting a virtuoso repertoire of blame-shifting, quasi-apologies ('I'm sorry you feel that way') and rhetorical flourishes that imply change, while retreating into impenetrable thickets of administrative complexity when it comes to reparation. Back in Paris, perhaps Dreyfus's promotion, long after it might have done him any good, may bring some comfort to his descendants. Beyond that, will this gesture deter a single act of anti-Semitic aggression? Or advance in the slightest degree the universal proposition that the systematic tormenting of a particular group of people – in whatever guise it may occur – is profoundly reprehensible. And if not, what on earth is the point? Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
We have learnt nothing from the treatment of Alfred Dreyfus
On a winter morning in 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was brought to the Ecole Militaire in Paris. Convicted of treason, he was sentenced to deportation and life imprisonment; his epaulettes were torn off, his sword broken, and he was paraded before a jeering mob of onlookers. Dreyfus was Jewish, and virulent anti-Semitism within the army and wider society was central to his conviction on flimsy evidence. Despite a campaign by his supporters, including the novelist Emile Zola, Dreyfus was convicted a second time. He was not fully exonerated until 1906. At the end of An Officer and a Spy, his 2013 novel about the Dreyfus Affair, Robert Harris added an epilogue in which the newly exonerated Major Dreyfus meets General Picquart, the minister of war, to ask for promotion to lieutenant-colonel – the rank he should have achieved had it not been for his wrongful conviction. Picquart refuses: 'It is politically impossible.' Last week, the lower house of the French parliament unanimously approved a bill put forward by the former prime minister Gabriel Attal to grant Dreyfus retrospective promotion to the rank of brigadier general. Attal made it clear that the gesture was symbolic. 'The anti-Semitism that targeted Alfred Dreyfus is not in the distant past,' the legislation noted. 'Today's acts of hatred remind us that the fight is still ongoing.' But over this belated promotion there hovers the question that attends all symbolic gestures of political regret. Public acts of contrition are not a new phenomenon. In 1174, King Henry II did penance for the murder of Thomas Becket, entering Canterbury barefoot, where he was beaten by the attendant bishops and monks, and spent the night in prayer at Becket's tomb. Such acts might seem theatrical, but they do at least acknowledge that contrition needs to take some tangible form. Words are not enough. This is something that modern politicians struggle to grasp. Their enthusiasm for making grand, frictionless expressions of regret for historical wrongs (the slave trade; the Amritsar massacre) seems to have grown as their appetite for taking responsibility for injustices that have occurred on their own watch (the Post Office and infected-blood scandals, to name just two) has dwindled. Lord Carrington's resignation as foreign secretary in 1982, over Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands, may have been the last recorded example of a politician resigning from a sense of noblesse oblige. Since then, we have become more accustomed to the spectacle of our legislators clinging like bindweed to office, until the glyphosate of public opinion finally withers them. In 2009, the then foreign-office minister Lord Malloch-Brown artlessly admitted that 'British politicians don't know how to say sorry'. But they've upped their game since then, perfecting a virtuoso repertoire of blame-shifting, quasi-apologies ('I'm sorry you feel that way') and rhetorical flourishes that imply change, while retreating into impenetrable thickets of administrative complexity when it comes to reparation. Back in Paris, perhaps Dreyfus's promotion, long after it might have done him any good, may bring some comfort to his descendants. Beyond that, will this gesture deter a single act of anti-Semitic aggression? Or advance in the slightest degree the universal proposition that the systematic tormenting of a particular group of people – in whatever guise it may occur – is profoundly reprehensible. And if not, what on earth is the point?
