France to unveil new government on Friday afternoon

The long-awaited new French government will be unveiled on Friday afternoon, the president's office has confirmed, four days after the announcement of Elisabeth Borne as the new Prime Minister.

Published: 20 May 2022 08:52 CEST

France to unveil new government on Friday afternoon

France's new Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne will announce the new government on Friday afternoon. Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP

After winning a second term as president on April 24th Emmanuel Macron was widely expected to announce a reshuffle of his government and a new PM.

However the announcement of Elisabeth Borne in the PM role – only the second female prime minister in France’s history – did not come until Monday, May 16th.

Technically it is up to the PM to form the government, although in practice the president is usually heavily involved.

Speaking while on her first prime ministerial trip on Thursday, Borne said she and President Macron needed to “take their time to ensure the best team”.

Now the Elysée has said that the announcement will come on “Friday afternoon”.

There has been much speculation on who will be in the government, as Borne has the option of changing the roles of existing ministers and bringing in outsiders who are specialists or well-known in particular areas.

The first engagement of the new government will be a meeting of the Council of Ministers on Monday.

The most pressing task will be to win a majority for Macron’s LREM party in June’s parliamentary elections, which will allow the president to press on with the programme he has planned for his second term – including an ambitious restructuring of the country’s pension system.

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France has in recent weeks been shaken by a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.

The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party has accused Attal of not doing enough on security as the anti-immigration party soars ahead of the government coalition in polls for the June 9th election.

Speaking in Viry-Chatillon, the town where Shemseddine was killed, Attal condemned the “addiction of some of our adolescents to violence”, calling for “a real surge of authority… to curb violence”.

“There are twice as many adolescents involved in assault cases, four times more in drug trafficking, and seven times more in armed robberies than in the general population,” he said.

Measures will include expanding compulsory school attendance to all the days of the week from 8am to 6pm for children of collège age (11 to 15).

“In the day the place to be is at school, to work and to learn,” said Attal, who was also marking 100 days in office since being appointed in January by President Emmanuel Macron to turn round the government’s fortunes.

Parents needed to take more responsibility, said Attal, warning that particularly disruptive children would have sanctions marked on their final grades.

OPINION: No, France is not suffering an unprecedented wave of violence

Promoting an old-fashioned back-to-basics approach to school authority, he said “You break something – you repair it. You make a mess – you clear it up. And if you disobey – we teach you respect.”

Attal also floated the possibility of children in exceptional cases being denied the right to special treatment on account of their minority in legal cases.

Thus 16-year-olds could be forced to immediately appear in court after violations “like adults”, he said. In France, the age of majority is 18, in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Macron and Attal face an uphill struggle to reverse the tide ahead of the European elections. Current polls point to the risk of a major debacle that would overshadow the rest of the president’s second mandate up to 2027.

A poll this week by Ifop-Fiducial showed the RN on 32.5 percent with the government coalition way behind on 18 percent.