European elections: ‘Mansplaining’ French PM accused of sidelining colleague

France’s young prime minister, Gabriel Attal, has been accused of an act of classic “mansplaining” after he invited himself on to a broadcast debate featuring his party’s lead candidate for the European elections, Valérie Hayer.

Politicians of all stripes have joined in the attacks, saying Mr Attal’s impromptu intervention did Ms Hayer no favours – leaving her looking sidelined and superfluous.

“Attal would never have let himself do that if [Ms Hayer] had been a man,” said Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Rally (RN).

“She may be my political adversary, but the way the prime minister humiliated her … was utterly shameful.”

Mr Attal, who is 35 and France’s first openly gay prime minister, appeared unexpectedly on the stage at a radio debate organised on Monday morning by state broadcaster France Info.

To sparse applause from the auditorium and embarrassed laughs from Ms Hayer, the prime minister said: “I am so sorry for bursting in like this – I was just being interviewed upstairs, and it’s important to me to come and lend support to Valérie.”

He then spoke for three or four minutes about the challenges facing Europe at this weekend’s elections, and the reasons why young voters in particular should choose President Macron’s Renaissance party.

At the end of his speech, Ms Hayer had the time he spoke deducted from her allocation.

Comments from other opposition leaders immediately flooded in on X, formerly Twitter, asking why Mr Attal couldn’t simply allow his party’s candidate – an experienced MEP – to do the job of leading the campaign herself.

“I share the anger that many people have, watching the prime minister – and the president – wiping their feet on Valérie Hayer,” said Marie Toussaint, who heads the list of the Green party.

For Olivier Faure, who heads the Socialist Party: “Macron and Attal are doing everything to undermine and render invisible their candidate. Every day they are putting themselves in her place.”

Ms Hayer – who had little public profile in France before the campaign – faces a likely rout at the weekend at the hands of National Rally under its 28-year-old leader Jordan Bardella.

The latest polls put Mr Bardella’s RN at 33%, with Ms Hayer battling it out with the Socialists at around 15%.

Commentators said President Macron and Mr Attal appeared to have lost faith in their top candidate’s dwindling campaign – which was why they were both projecting themselves on to the media front line.

Mr Attal has already held a two-way election debate with Jordan Bardella – earning angry attacks from other parties who say that Renaissance and the RN have a shared interest in turning politics into a perpetual fight between President Macron and the far right.

Mr Macron has also been accused of unfairly using presidential privilege to help his party in the elections, with a major speech on Europe last month and a television interview on Thursday on the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

“It’s all a bit macho, isn’t it?” said François-Xavier Bellamy, who heads the conservative Republicans’ list. He summed up Mr Attal’s intervention as: “Listen Valérie, I can do this better than you; I’m going to explain how it works at a European election.”

“Come on, when is this all going to stop?” he added. “In the middle of a campaign is it normal for the executive to spend its time saturating the media space?”