00:00 Let's get some more analysis then on what is a rather historic afternoon here in Paris. I'm
00:05 joined live by Paul Smith. He's a historian. He's also an associate professor of French and
00:11 Francophone studies at the University of Nottingham. Good to have you on this historic afternoon, sir.
00:17 Very pleased you could join us. Thanks for having me, Nadia.
00:20 Tell us first of all what your first thoughts were today when you heard that confirmation it
00:26 was to be Attal for French Prime Minister. Well, his name has been doing the rounds quite a lot
00:33 over the last few days. There were a couple of other names that were being bandied about, but
00:37 it's very interesting that Attal has got the nomination, got the appointment, because he
00:43 comes from the left of Macronisme, as it were. He started out, it's not very long ago, but his rise
00:50 has been pretty meteoric. But he comes from the left. So in some ways he is a bit like Elisabeth
00:55 Bond, but certainly it's not a complete surprise. A couple of the other names that were suggested,
01:01 Julien Denormandie and a couple of others, were pretty much non-starters because they were too
01:06 close to the right. OK, so he's on the left of Macron's party. And as I've already mentioned,
01:14 as James was talking about as well, he is or he will be the youngest prime minister in modern
01:20 French history. It's also interesting, I think, that Macron was the youngest president when he
01:25 took office as well. He was 39 at the time. And as you say, they're very close allies.
01:31 Is it fair, though, to say that Gabriel Attal is sort of a junior Emmanuel Macron? I wonder how
01:38 far you think the parallels between the two politicians run? Well, I think left wing
01:43 critics certainly want to kind of point to this, that this is simply a kind of,
01:48 he's a sort of an avatar, as it were, of Macron, but in the matignon. And there are some question
01:56 marks there about how he will make his imprint on the office of being prime minister. He's not
02:02 a heavyweight in any way. He doesn't have the experience of a Bon, or a Philippe, or a Castex,
02:08 for example. So I think that there are certainly discussions to be had there about his weight,
02:17 as it were. So I think that there, yes, there is a reason for that. There's the idea of young and
02:24 dynamic. And James was talking earlier in yourself as well about this idea of a reset and the wishes
02:30 to the nation, the speech that he made on the 31st of December, Macron, and this idea of rearming
02:38 France, determination. This is a year of determination of, it's a very packed year.
02:43 I mean, when you look at the diary going forward, both politically and in other ways,
02:47 perhaps it's the need for a young and energetic prime minister. But it might also say something
02:56 about the state of Macron. I was thinking the other day about how this idea of endlessly talking
03:04 about restarting the dialogue with the French people and just how he thinks that's going to go.
03:09 So there's a little bit of that going on here as well.
03:11 And look, for the moment, Gabriel Attal is popular in France, isn't he? Indeed,
03:17 according to some polling, he's the most popular politician in the country. But I wonder how long
03:23 you think that might last, given that he's going to have a difficult job on his hands,
03:29 getting Macron's legislation through a divided parliament?
03:33 Yes, absolutely. I think that it could be a matter of weeks. It really depends on
03:39 on him. I mean, there's a lot of criticism in advance of this young
03:43 politician, but we have to give him a chance to actually perform as prime minister, not just
03:50 perform, but to deliver. I suppose the two most divisive pieces of legislation, both the
03:55 pensions reform and the immigration reform, have gone through and Bonn handled that. And she's got
04:02 the budget through, although using 49-3. So in some ways, this is the way has been cleared for
04:08 a new prime minister. And we've seen today that it's Attal. What he needs to show is that there's
04:14 more to him. He's a very polished communicator. That was why he was the spokesman for the
04:20 government from 2020 to 2022. He does also, though, I mean, I was looking back through his
04:26 through comments on him, he has, he did as a junior minister of education, actually sort of
04:31 perform as one of these, I think it was Liberation described as being a junior minister who actually
04:37 does some work. So he does have a bit of a track record of getting things done.
04:43 All right. Well, it's really interesting to get your analysis this afternoon,
04:47 Paul Smith. We'll have to leave it there. But thank you very much indeed.
