Gabriel Attal has been named the youngest Prime Minister of France in modern history at the age of just 34.

As struggling President Emmanuel Macron looks ahead to European elections later this year, he's relying a popular figure who polls suggest is the most popular politician in the country to turn his fortunes around.

An Ipsos Mori survey in November put the new Prime Minister's approval rating at 40%, ahead of Mr Macron's major political rivals and far better than the head of state's own 27%.

After his appointment Mr Attal said on social media: "Thank you Mr President for your trust, I appreciate the honour given to me to be named Prime Minister.

"One course: keep control of our destiny, unleash French potential and reset our country.

"To work, with strength and humility and with no taboos, in service of the French people."

But who is the new Prime Minister? And can he help save Mr Macron's centrist government?

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Background

The Herald: Emmanuel Macron

Under the French constitution, the President has the power to appoint the Prime Minister but not to dismiss him or her.

However, they can ask for them to resign and Mr Macron asked for Elisabeth Borne to step down earlier this week.

The President is facing a tough political landscape ahead of the forthcoming European elections, with pressure from both the right and the left.

Mr Macron lost his parliamentary majority in the 2022 legislative election, with major gains by both the left-wing coalition led by Jean-Luc Melenchon and the far-right Rassemblent National (National Rally or RN) of Marine Le Pen.

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Since then his government has struggled to pass legislation, often having to change bills to win the support of other parties.

Controversial pension reforms brought the public to the streets in 2023, with the bill - which raised the state pension to 64 from 62 among other things - eventually passing after Ms Borne invoked a constitutional article allowing for it to proceed through the National Assembly without a vote unless a motion of no confidence in the government, tabled within 24 hours is successful.

A recent bill to toughen up immigration laws only passed after concessions to Ms Le Pen, who claimed it as an "ideological victory".

With France going to the polls for the EU elections on June 9, recent opinion polling has Mr Macron's party, Renaissance, behind the RN and in a battle with the left alliance to avoid slipping into third place.

It's in this context that the President has turned to the new Prime Minister.

The rise of Attal

The Herald: Gabriel Attal was named as France’s youngest prime minister, as President Emmanuel Macron seeks a fresh start for the rest of his term amid growing political pressure from the far right (Francois Mori/AP)

Born in 1989 to a French film producer father of Tunisian-Jewish descent and an Orthodox Christian mother in a well-to-do area of Paris, Mr Attal studied at the private École Alsacienne before attending the prestigious Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.

Known as the 'factory of the elites', the school has produced five Presidents of the Republic, including Mr Macron himself, while Nicolas Sarkozy attended but did not graduate.

According to relatives his interest in politics was sparked in 2003 when his parents took him to attend a demonstration against Jean-Marie Le Pen - father of Marine - in the lead-up to the second round of voting in the 2002 presidential election.

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Mr Attal joined in the 2006 protest movement against the introduction of a new form of employment contract for those under 26, with up to three million taking to the streets to oppose it.

Though the bill passed it was never enforced and it was withdrawn soon after.

Mr Attal joined the Socialist Party in that same year to support the presidential candidacy of Ségolène Royal, though was described by Le Monde as being part of the 'second left' more in line with third way politics.

Having taken an internship with Marisol Touraine during the 2012 presidential campaign he worked under her as an advisor for five years when she was the minister of health, and was elected as a councillor for the Parisian suburb of Vanves at the 2014 municipal elections.

In 2016 he left the Socialist Party to join Mr Macron's newly-formed En Marche (later La Républice En Marche, now Renaissance) and in 2017 he was elected on the party's ticket to be the MP for the 10th constituency of Hauts-de-Seine.

Then aged 28, he formed a young guard described by Le Monde as Mr Macron's janissaries.

A photo posted in August of that year by Mr Attal showed him, Sacha Houlié (29), Pierre Person (28), and the new President's political advisor Stéphane Séjourné (32) sat around a table by the sea in Morhiban.

The group were, Le Monde said, "devoted body and soul to the head of state, dependent only on him, accountable only to him... Macron's shock troops, a commando of young deputies with no qualms who can be mobilised in a minute with unfailing loyalty".

Perhaps unsurprisingly he rose quickly through the ranks, attaining his first government position in October of 2018 - becoming the youngest person to do in the process - and being made the government's official spokesperson two years later.

The process was not always smooth, however.

After being appointed to the government, Juan Branco - a controversial lawyer and former classmate at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques - revealed on social media that Mr Attal and Mr Séjourné had been in a civil partnership since 2017.

Mr Attal officially came out in an interview in December of that year, and says he has since received "bucketloads of vomit" online both relating to his sexuality and his Jewish background.

"My father told me: 'you may be Orthodox but you'll feel Jewish for the rest of your life," he told Libération in 2019. "Not least because your name means you'll suffer anti-semitism."

Mr Branco alleged that his former classmate had been "freed" from the death of his father to formalise his relationship, something denied by Mr Attal who said he informed his father while he was in hospital with cancer, receiving the response: "Hopefully I'll be out by the end of the week. That way you can invite him to Sunday lunch."

Today the pair are the power couple of French politics.

"They have risen to the top of the state and today are in a totally unprecedented position in the Fifth Republic," Le Monde wrote of Mr Attal and Mr Séjourné in 2021. "One whispers in the ear of the President, the other speaks in the name of the Prime Minister."

PM or spokesperson?

Though a previous reshuffle had seen him appointed Minister for Education, January brought the promotion to PM after just five months in the role - though he did find time to ban the abaya, a traditional Islamic dress, from French schools.

Given his reputation as a staunch Macron devotee, the appointment has been greeted with cynicism by the opposition.

Mr Mélenchon said on social media: "Attal retakes his post as spokesperson, the function of the Prime Minister disappears.

"The Presidential monarch governs alone with his court. Woe to the subjects whose princes are children."

Ms Le Pen wrote: "What can the French expect from this fourth Prime Minister and fifth government in seven years? Nothing.

"Tired of this puerile ballet of of ambition and ego, they (the French people) are waiting for a project that puts them back at the heart of public priorities.

"The path to change begins on June 9."

Whether his appointment can do much to save Mr Macron's government remains to be seen.

The current President became France's youngest head of state since Napoleon when he was elected aged 39 - you wouldn't bet against his protégé attempting his own run at the record.