France's 1st Openly Gay PM Subjected To Hate Messages On Social Media

Gabriel Attal made history, on Tuesday, by being appointed as France's first openly gay Prime Minister. The 34-year-old, half-Jewish leader, took over duties from Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who stepped down less than two years into her role.

Even as Mr Attal begins to settle into the prestigious role, he has been at the receiving end of hate messages - both antisemitic and homophobic - on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, as per The Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF).

In light of this, UEJF has called for sanctions against the micro-blogging site. In a note - shared as a thread on X - UEJF has asked for quick action. The note by the student body begins by quoting some of the derogatory terms hurled at Mr Attal. It added, "The appointment of Gabriel Attal as Prime Minister is the subject of a new wave of antisbic hatred on X. It is no longer time for condemnaemitic and homophotions but for action."

It is a separate tweet, UEJF demanded: "Sanction against all authors of hateful tweets. Close prison for the main promoters of hatred such as [Alain] Soral Finally dissuasive fine against X who refuses to moderate hatred."

Mr Attal, who is France's youngest post-war prime minister, previously served as the education minister in the Macron government. The leader's sexuality was revealed to the public in 2018 by an old schoolmate. Mr Attal, who is half Alsatian Jewish descent (on the maternal side) and half Tunisian Jewish descent (on the paternal side), was a junior minister and was in a relationship with Stephane Sejourne, Mr Macron's former political advisor at the time.

One of Mr Attal's most controversial and publicised moves after his appointment as education minister in 2023 was to ban Muslim abaya dress in state schools.