Gabriel Attal, France's new prime minister, says his Jewish ancestry has shaped him

[Behind the Aegis]

France’s newest prime minister is getting attention for the two firsts he brings to the job: Gabriel Attal, at 34, is the country’s youngest ever prime minister, and its first to be openly gay.

He says another facet of his identity also shapes him: His late father’s Jewishness.

Attal’s mother raised him and his siblings in her Russian Orthodox Christian faith. But his father, the film producer Yves Attal, was Jewish, born in Paris to Tunisian Jewish and European Jewish parents.

“My father said to me, ‘Perhaps you’re Orthodox but you’ll feel Jewish all your life, mainly because you’ll suffer antisemitism because of your name,’” Attal told Liberation in 2019. Attal is a common North African Jewish name and would be recognized as such in France, where there are large populations of Tunisian and Algerian Jews.



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[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Jewish students condemn antisemitic tweets about French PM Gabriel Attal

The French Union of Jewish Students has called for sanctions against people who have written antisemitic and homophobic comments about France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, on the social network X.
...
The UEJF posted a message on X saying: “The nomination of Gabriel Attal as prime minister is the object of a new wave of antisemitic and homophobic hatred on X. It’s no longer the moment for condemnation but for action.”

The union called for sanctions against anyone writing hate speech on the platform. They said there should be prison sentences for those promoting hatred and fines against X itself, which it said “refuses to moderate hatred”.

After Attal’s appointment this week, Yonathan Arfi, the head of the Crif umbrella group of Jewish organisations, complained of “a wave of homophobic and antisemitic commentary on social media”. Arfi said that for those driven by hatred Attal was being reduced to his sexual orientation and the origin of his surname.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/12/jewish-students-condemn-antisemitic-tweets-french-pm-gabriel-attal-homophobia