G. Attal makes May 1st a slogan

In claiming the bill from the Senate on labor on May 1st, Gabriel Attal deliberately bypassed parliamentary debate and turned a law into a presidential slogan.

A year and a half after the dissolution, once the chapter on the 2026 budget and municipal elections is closed, the presidential election is the next essential political step. Faced with relatively indifferent French citizens for now, potential candidates are biding their time, but not Gabriel Attal.

The former Prime Minister is making headlines to dominate the media stage and catch up. He is flooding social media with videos, announcing a major rally in May, publishing a book, and creating a new form of bill: the “slogan bill”. The text on labor on May 1st is an example of this.

The former Prime Minister took hold of this text introduced in the Senate by the right and became its most media-friendly spokesperson. Paradoxically, instead of using the examination of the text in the assembly to explain its merits and benefits, he had the text rejected without any debate, sending it back to the Senate immediately. This tactical move had several advantages. It deprived the left of a platform where they could have spoken in unison to defend this social marker they are strongly attached to. It accelerated the procedure to reach a joint committee more quickly, which would have adopted the text in a closed-door setting attached to that body.

The former Prime Minister could have then taken credit for these provisions among the affected parties, mainly bakers and florists. He would have balanced his presidential profile to the right, despite being from the PS party.

However, Sébastien Lecornu and the trade unions resisted, the left threatened to censure the government, and the government postponed the joint committee to a later unknown date, promising a “negotiated and pragmatic” solution to emphasize that the bill was not open to negotiations.

The failure of the operation does not mean Gabriel Attal’s failure. This is the essence of a “slogan bill”: its rejection does not prevent the presidential candidate from appropriating it. Gabriel Attal loudly regrets this decision. He does not hesitate to blame the current Prime Minister, who is from his own camp, for not keeping the government’s commitment.

He positions himself as the candidate who will lead the fight against “political and technocratic absurdity” and questions “what this debate reveals about the obstacles hindering the country” even though the parliamentary debate did not take place, in part thanks to him.

This episode, which divides Emmanuel Macron’s former majority, reveals two political approaches. On one side is Sébastien Lecornu, who defends parliamentary work and social dialogue, advocating for negotiation and education; on the other side is Gabriel Attal, who relies on a new form of faster but less nuanced and possibly less enlightening political communication. These two approaches could structure the 2027 election campaign, between those who propose projects and those who accumulate slogans.

Marie-Eve Malouines, Political editorialist