Category Archives: Gabriel Attal

Who launched attack on the French rail network – and why?

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Arsonists used crude methods but disruption to opening of the Olympic Games in Paris was severe

It was about 1.15am when the SNCF maintenance workers, carrying out repairs by moonlight, spotted the group of people a little further down the railway line near a signal box outside the sleepy village of Vergigny, in the northern French department of Yonne.

They were concerned enough by the unlikely sight at such an hour to approach the intruders, and then to make a call to the local police as those they had interrupted ran off into the dark.

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French PM says efforts to prevent far-right majority can succeed

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Gabriel Attal urges on campaign to peg back rise of National Rally as candidates pull out to avoid splitting vote

France’s prime minister has said nationwide efforts to prevent Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) winning an outright majority in parliament could succeed, after more than 200 candidates pulled out of Sunday’s legislative election runoff to avoid splitting the anti-far-right vote.

“We can avoid an absolute majority for the far right,” Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday, adding that 90% of candidates from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp had quit three-way races if they were in third with an RN candidate ahead of them.

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French PM says voters for far right may end up like Britons ‘who cry over Brexit’

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Gabriel Attal cautions against backing Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which leads solidly in polls for European elections

The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, has said voters choosing the far right in the European elections next week risk becoming like British people who regret backing Brexit.

“Don’t be like the British who cried after Brexit,” he told RTL radio on Thursday. “A large majority of British people regret Brexit and sometimes regret not turning out to vote, or voting for something that was negative for their country.

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French PM accused of recycling far-right ideas in youth violence crackdown

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Gabriel Attal says state needs ‘real surge of authority’ in speech in Viry-Châtillon, where 15-year-old killed

The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, is facing criticism for his proposed crackdown on teenage violence in and around schools, after he said some teenagers in France were “addicted to violence”, just as the government seeks to reclaim ground on security issues from the far right before European elections.

In his speech in Viry-Châtillon, a town south of Paris where a 15-year-old boy was beaten and killed this month by a group of young people, Attal said the state needed “a real surge of authority”.

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France to fine patients €5 for missing GP appointments

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Proposed penalty, intended to boost creaking health service, is criticised by doctors’ unions and patients’ groups

Patients in France who fail to turn up to a doctor’s appointment without a good excuse will be fined €5 (£4.30) under a proposal from the government.

Gabriel Attal said on Monday that medical professionals reported an estimated 27m no-shows every year, adding: “We cannot allow this to continue.”

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French farming protests: mother and daughter die after car hits road blockade

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Three people questioned on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter after collision in Pamiers, south of Toulouse

A woman and her teenage daughter have died in southern France after a car hit a roadblock where they were standing. The blockade had been set up by farmers taking part in growing anti-government protests.

The 35-year-old woman and her 14-year-old daughter were killed at 5.45am when a car went through a warning barrage and collided at speed with bales of straw piled up to stop traffic in Pamiers, Ariège, to the south of Toulouse.

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Row over education minister sparks crisis in France’s new government

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Amélie Oudéa-Castéra was accused of lying about why she enrolled her son in a private school

France’s new education minister has sparked the first major crisis for Gabriel Attal’s new government following accusations she failed to give the true reason why she enrolled her children in a private school.

The snowballing row threatens to derail attempts by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to give the government – which does not have an absolute parliamentary majority – a new lease of life before European elections in June.

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Macron looks to Sarkozy connection to head off far right in France

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Hiring of figures close to former rightwing leader Nicolas Sarkozy confirms president’s rightward shift

Emmanuel Macron has tilted the French government significantly to the right, bringing in key figures close to the former rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy in an attempt to reinvigorate his second term and limit possible gains by the far right at the European elections.

“I don’t want managers, I want revolutionaries,” Macron told the first cabinet meeting of the new government led by Gabriel Attal, 34, France’s youngest ever prime minister. He called for “quick results”.

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Jewish students condemn antisemitic tweets about French PM Gabriel Attal

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Students’ union calls for sanctions over posts on social network that have also contained homophobic abuse

The French Union of Jewish Students has called for sanctions against people who have written antisemitic and homophobic comments about France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, on the social network X.

Attal, 34, who was appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, this week, is France’s youngest prime minister and also the first out gay politician in the job.

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