{"id":8573,"date":"2026-04-23T12:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/8573\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:16:10","slug":"former-french-pm-attal-moves-closer-to-presidential-run-with-book-launch-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/8573\/","title":{"rendered":"Former French PM Attal moves closer to presidential run with book launch \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a subject to which he devotes an entire section of his book. \u201cI warned him of the consequences: at best, an ungovernable country; at worst, a majority for the National Rally,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Book tours are common practice in French politics, not so much to sell copies as to generate publicity and media appearances.<\/p>\n<p>Attal has stopped short of directly attacking his rival, but interviews promoting his book have allowed him to underscore some key differences with Philippe. <\/p>\n<p>On one particularly hot-button issue in France, pensions, Attal described Philippe\u2019s policy proposal \u2014 increasing the minimum retirement age to 67 \u2014 as being \u201cbrutal\u201d and said it would \u201clead to despair.\u201d Macron\u2019s 2023 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/emmanuel-macron-pension-reform-triggers-strikes-protests-across-france-trade-uions-paris\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">move<\/a> to increase the minimum from 62 to 64 was already widely rejected and led to mass strikes and millions protesting.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Philippe\u2019s supporters argue Attal\u2019s book \u2014 which dives into his personal life, including his father\u2019s death and his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/gabriel-attal-stephane-sejourne-relationship-french-presidential-hopeful\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">romantic relationship<\/a> with European Commissioner St\u00e9phane S\u00e9journ\u00e9 \u2014 is short on policy specifics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel \u2014 his life, his relationship, his father\u2026 (but) what are his values? What is his vision for France?\u201d said one former government official backing Philippe.<\/p>\n<p>Clea Caulcutt contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a subject to which he devotes an entire section of his book. \u201cI warned him of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6192,375,379,36,5,1649,4327],"class_list":{"0":"post-8573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-edouard-philippe","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-elections-in-europe","11":"tag-emmanuel-macron","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-french-election-2027","14":"tag-gabriel-attal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}