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Gabriel Attal announced Tuesday that he plans to cut taxes and get rid of costly bureaucracy, in his first policy statement as French prime minister.
Attal and French President Emmanuel Macron are currently trying to navigate a political crisis sparked by farmers’ protests across France.
Tuesday’s announcements are an attempt to assuage unhappy farmers and provide a boon to France’s middle class, as Macron’s government hopes to gain ground among French conservatives.
Speaking before the French National Assembly, Attal vowed to “lift the burden” of rules and regulations for small business owners, slash red tape and reduce payroll taxes in a bid to encourage employers to give raises to minimum wage workers.
Attal also confirmed a total of €2 billion in tax cuts for the middle class, a move which was first announced earlier this month by Macron.
“Our farmers embody our fundamental values,” Attal said, lauding their “strong work ethic and entrepreneurial freedom.” Farmers have been blockading highways across France in recent weeks, asking for concrete measures to cut regulations and costs, and improve their living conditions.
The 34-year-old Attal, France’s youngest-ever head of government, laid out his four “priorities” as prime minister: labor, state services, restoring authority in classrooms and society, and protecting the environment.
“Those who work should always earn more than those who don’t work,” Attal said, announcing a mandatory 15 hours a week of activity — which could, for example, take the form of trainings designed to help people back into the workforce — for welfare recipients.
Attal added that France must “question” its social aid system to disincentivize inactivity. “Having a more efficient and less costly social model isn’t a dirty word, it’s an imperative,” he said.
The prime minister said he was moving to “restore authority in society,” and outlined a broad list of policy plans including sentencing parents of young offenders to community service hours and putting in place new sanctions for minors under the age of 16.
Attal, who recently became the most popular politician in France according to an Odoxa poll, spoke on the heels of Macron’s press conference in Sweden during which the French president said it would be “too easy” to blame the EU for all of the hardships facing farmers.
A motion of no confidence has already been filed against Attal’s government by the left-wing opposition in response to his decision not to ask for the lower house’s approval of his Cabinet and policy, something most French governments have done but which the last two administrations have avoided due to lacking an absolute majority in parliament.
