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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1758 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 11, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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France

French leftist Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne has resigned on Macron’s request from her position. Her replacement is the young (youngest PM ever actually) Gabriel Attal, also originally from the Socialist Party. Polls say Attal, who rose to prominence during the Covid pandemic and went on to be the Education Minister, is one of the most popular politicians in France. Macron is likely hoping through his appointment to absorb some of that popularity himself in the wake of a series of hard ball policy pushes, from the pension reform to the immigration bill, combined with the backdrop of rising living costs. It still remains to be seen if Macron will reshuffle other members of his cabinet.

Also:

Macron, 46, and Attal have a combined age just below that of Joe Biden, who is running for a second term in this year's U.S. presidential election.

Rude.

The sole political action that wikipedia listed him as doing is to ban abayas, an article of clothing worn by some muslims, from public schools.

It's funny to me that that makes him appeal to conservatives more, as my instinctual response is to see that as terrible, as I value religious liberty being a thing. But it looks like France already banned wearing crosses in public schools.

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