The trouble with France's new 'revolutionary' Cabinet

French President Emmanuel Macron was certainly mixing his metaphors when he unveiled a new government this month. Eyeing his recruits proudly at their first meeting of the new year, he compared them to "revolutionaries" – the classic term for all Paris radicals who want to make a difference – and also to the nation’s very popular rugby team.

"This government is the Fifteen of France – pack, strength, speed," Macron said with a knowing grin.

It was a confused analogy, especially as the president missed the chance to use two words associated with both sport and politics that would have been much more appropriate: Right Wing.

Ever since losing his absolute parliamentary majority in June 2022, Macron has undoubtedly been chasing the votes of a reactionary, not to say xenophobic class of French citizens who would normally vote for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN).

Her far-right party is in the ascendancy, to the extent that opinion polls suggest Le Pen could replace Macron as president in 2027, when he is forced to step down after completing two terms – the maximum French heads of state are allowed.

Le Pen hailed an "ideological victory" in December, when Macron was forced to rely on her party in Parliament to push through a highly contentious immigration bill.

Members of his own Renaissance party were furious. Many voted against the legislation, or abstained, while Macron’s own Health Minister even resigned.

All opposed measures including making it harder for children born in France to foreign parents to gain French nationality. Under the proposed legislation, a five-year delay will also be imposed before some migrants can claim family and housing allowances.

Such discriminatory policies are in line with the actions of Macron’s newly appointed Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal. As Education Minister last July, Attal banned the abaya – the flowing garment often worn by some young Muslim women and girls – from state schools and colleges.

Attacking female clothing is a favoured tactic of extreme secularists in France, but there was something particularly sinister about Attal’s move. It was indicative of a sharp lurch to the right by a government that previously tried to project itself as liberal and inclusive.

At just 34 years old, Attal is France’s youngest ever prime minister, and technically a refreshing change. In reality, he is already being described as a “Mini-Macron” – a duplicitous conservative who personifies the cynicism of the Paris establishment.

Just like Macron, he comes from a very comfortable bourgeois background. In Attal’s case, one grounded in inherited wealth (he became a millionaire overnight in 2015, following the death of his film producer and lawyer father, Yves Attal).

Attal is by no means the kind of socially aware wunderkind likely to pacify an increasingly divided France that has been torn apart by seven years of Macron-era unrest, which started with the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) riots, soon after the president came to power in 2017.

Then there were severe disturbances all last year caused by Macron pushing up the pension age from 62 to 64 years old without parliamentary approval, and then by the shooting dead of an ethnic minority teenager by a traffic policeman in the Paris suburbs. Add the cost-of-living crisis, and resentment towards the political elite exemplified by Macron and Attal is soaring.

Their new Education Minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, summed up the arrogance involved when she contemptuously announced that one of her own children had been much happier at a private school.

Days after taking over from Attal, she said she had moved her eldest son out of the state system because of staff shortages and wanted "a different solution" to educating him. This naturally caused an outcry, with one trade unionist saying her approach was "hallucinatory."

This sense of fantasy also applies to the re-emergence of Rachida Dati as Culture Minister in the new government. She was a notoriously ineffective Justice Minister under her mentor, former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is now a convicted criminal.

Dati, a hard-line right winger like Sarkozy, has her own troubles with the law. She has been indicted for "passive corruption" and "benefiting from abuse of power" after allegedly receiving €900,000 (~USD$977,000) cash for lobbying on behalf of the car giant Renault in the European Parliament.

Dati, who vehemently denies any wrongdoing, is also cited in an even more dramatic organised crime case involving kidnap, torture, lobbyists, and Paris St Germain football club.

“An indictment is not a conviction,” said Attal, displaying the shoulder-shrugging indifference so typical of senior French politicians in the face of alleged financial corruption, however seedy.

Attal’s ex-domestic partner, Stéphane Séjourné, is also causing disquiet, after suddenly being promoted to Foreign Secretary. The couple’s civil union has apparently been dissolved, according to Attal, but the men remain close friends – leading to accusations of cronyism. Séjourné had never held a ministerial post before his appointment to one of the great offices of state.

If this all sounds rather amusingly banana republic, then remember that Macron has always assured the French that one of his primary aims is to lock the far-right out of power. However, without a proper power base set in a coherent ideology of his own, Macron has found himself increasingly friendless, and reliant on pretty much anyone who will help him out.

European elections are looming in June, and they are likely to result in even more gains for Le Pen’s RN party. It is currently running up to 10 points ahead of Renaissance in opinion polls, and the gap could be even wider as the country pushes towards the 2027 presidential election.

Macron would undoubtedly argue that Attal is his new talisman – a natural winner like Antoine Dupont, the brilliant 27-year-old star rugbyman who was tipped to spur France to World Cup glory last year.

Instead, Dupont and his team experienced a catastrophe in Paris, as Les Bleus, once the overwhelming favourites, lost to South Africa in the quarter final.

It was a sobering defeat for the whole country, and one which Macron – who was at the game in person – has clearly not learned from.