French politician Gabrial Attal has at 34 years of age become the youngest ever Prime Minister of France, and also the first person who has shared that they are gay to hold the position.
Élisabeth Borne resigned as Prime Minister yesterday after days of speculation about a government reshuffle. President Emmanuel Macron has selected Education Minister Gabriel Attal as her replacement.
Attal was born in 1989 in Hauts-de-Seine, he has previously held a number of government roles including government spokesperson and Public Accounts Minister. Early in his career he was a member of the Socialist Party but later switched to Emmanuel Macron’s more centrist party – now known as Renaissance.
In French politics he is often described as ‘Baby Macron’. He has been praised for his skills in communication, and his ferocious debates against hard-right elements of politics. Attal is in a civil partnership with fellow politician Stéphane Séjourné.
While the new Prime Minister’s age is being highlighted, he’s not the first person to hold such a high-profile role in their mid-30s. Finland’s former Prime Minister Sanna Marin was 34 when she became Prime Minister in 2019, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán was 35 when he first became his country’s Prime Minister in 1998. While Austria’s Sebastian Kurz became Prime Minister at the age of 31 back in 2017.
Australia’s youngest Prime Minister to date is Chris Watson. He served as the third Prime Minister of Australia for a short period of less than four months in 1904.
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