When Emmanuel Macron, then economy minister, broke away from France’s Socialist party in 2016 to run for the presidency, his disruptive message about modernising France attracted many young people.
Among them was Gabriel Attal, then 27, a speechwriter, who threw in with Macron, signing on to the campaign and later being elected as a lawmaker for his nascent party in the Hauts-de-Seine constituency near where he grew up.
“Gabriel saw straight away the modernity that Macron’s election could bring,” said Hervé Marseille, a senator from the same constituency for the UDI centrist party. “Attal is an extension of that movement — a baby Macron.”