Gabriel Attal
A French politician who became the Fifth Republic’s youngest prime minister and its first openly gay one.
Gabriel Attal was born in Clamart in 1989. He grew up in Paris, studied at Sciences Po and began his political career in the Socialist Party before joining Emmanuel Macron’s movement in 2016.
Elected to the National Assembly in 2017, he entered government the following year. He went on to serve as government spokesperson, budget minister and education minister. His sexuality became public against his wishes in 2018; he later spoke openly about being gay and about the hostility he had experienced.
In January 2024 Macron appointed him prime minister. At 34 he was the youngest person to hold that office in the Fifth Republic and France’s first openly gay prime minister. His government faced the pressures of a divided parliament and an increasingly unsettled political landscape.
After Macron called a snap election that summer, Attal remained in office in a caretaker capacity before leaving in September 2024. He subsequently led Renaissance’s parliamentary group and the party itself. In May 2026 he announced his intention to contest the 2027 presidential election, continuing a rapid rise through national politics.
