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, reports The Guardian.
“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”.
Eight of the small team of 14 key ministers have a background in Sarkozy’s party, Les Républicains, including the surprise appointment as culture minister of Rachida Dati, who served as Sarkozy’s justice minister from 2007 to 2009.
Catherine Vautrin, a Sarkozy loyalist, who served in government 20 years ago under the rightwing Jacques Chirac, was given a large ministry covering health, labour and solidarity. When first tipped for Macron’s government in 2022, she was criticised by the left of Macron’s centrist party because she opposed the legalisation of same-sex marriage in France in 2013.
Two other long-serving politicians from the right, who were previously in government under Sarkozy, Gérald Darmanin at the interior ministry, and Bruno Le Maire at the finance ministry, kept their jobs.