Gabriel Attal was caught in the act of inattention in the National Assembly on February 5, while the left was defending its motion of censure against him. Will a photo of a dog be the starting point of a controversy?
A Prime Minister distracted and even inattentive to the speeches of parliamentarians in the National Assembly. This is shown in a photo of Gabriel Attal taken on the benches of the hemicycle on Monday February 5, while the left-wing forces were defending their motion of censure. The head of government was clearly not worried about his future, his eyes glued to his phone and laughing with the ministers around him. The object of amusement? A photo of a dog, adorable.
The scene of a Prime Minister threatened with a motion of censure, even if it had little chance of being voted on, being moved by the image of a dog seems surreal. Is this a montage? No, assures Amaury Corne, the photographer behind the photo and working for the Hans Lucas agency, contacted by Libération. The author of the photo shared several images from the sequence to the newspaper as well as the metadata of the photos which confirm that they were taken on Monday February 5 at “10:37 and 35 seconds according to the photographer’s camera”.
The photos of Amaury Corne coupled with those of the National Assembly confirm that it is indeed Gabriel Attal who holds the telephone in his right hand and shows his screen to the three ministers near him: Prisca Thévenot and Rachida Dati behind him, Marie Lebec to his left. As for the content of the phone screen, only the photos of the agency photographer Hans Lucas allow us to see it. Which ensures that there is no editing and that it is indeed the image of a dog, apparently of the chow-chow breed, that the Prime Minister shared with his colleagues.
If the object of Gabriel Attal’s devolution is enough to make you smile, it especially adds to the anger of the opposition, in particular that of the left who was on the podium at the time of the events. At the time the photo was taken, it was the socialist deputy Boris Vallaud who was speaking before the vote on the motion of censure tabled by the four left-wing forces. The Landes elected official spoke of unhappiness at work and the fate of workers. Annoyed by the inattention of the members of the government, he pointed it out to the entire assembly: “I see that you are laughing at this moment, at lives which damage bodies, souls, cause sickness and death, sir. the Prime Minister. But all this, in indifference to your failure to listen to an opposition to which you claimed to be reaching out.”
The socialist here raises an error on the part of the Prime Minister or at least a breach of the promise he had made only a few minutes before the left spoke: that of being “always listening”. It’s missed. Gabriel Attal, however, recovered after this MP’s exit since in the photos of Amaury Corne taken in the following minutes and consulted by Libération, all the phones of members of the government are put away.
The photos, however, risk causing a reaction and the image of a Prime Minister who is disinterested in the debates in the Assembly risks sticking to Gabriel Attal for a while. The same day in the lower house, Manuel Bompard took up the words of the head of government, modifying them slightly, to confront Gabriel Attal with his own injunctions. The Prime Minister’s expression “you challenge authority, you are taught to respect it” had then become: “You challenge Parliament, Parliament teaches you to respect it”. This is what is said.
