FRENCH communists blasted President Emmanuel Macron for changing everything so “nothing changes” as Gabriel Attal was appointed today as France’s youngest-ever and first openly gay prime minister.

Elisabeth Borne resigned from the post on Monday following recent political turmoil over an immigration law that accelerates deportations and restricts healthcare access for foreigners.

Critics of the government say the policy panders to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.

Mr Attal, 34, rose to prominence as the government spokesman and education minister and had polled as the most popular minister in the outgoing government. 

President Macron will work with him to name a new government.

Mr Attal, a former member of the Socialist Party, joined Mr Macron’s newly created political movement in 2016 and was government spokesperson from 2020 to 2022, a job that made him well known to the French public.

He was then named budget minister before being appointed education minister in July.

Mr Attal quickly announced a ban on long robes in classrooms which took effect with the new school year in September, saying the garments worn mainly by Muslims were testing secularism in the schools.

He also launched a plan to experiment with uniforms in some state schools, as part of efforts to move the focus away from clothes and reduce school bullying.

President Macron has shifted rightward on security and migration issues since his election in 2017.

The shift has accelerated as the National Rally has gained more electoral support.

French Communist Party national secretary Fabien Roussel said that Mr Macron was attempting to “change everything so that nothing changes.”

He said that he would be seeking an urgent meeting with the new prime minister “to take action against the high cost of living and for a rise in wages and pensions.”