Elisabeth Borne. Barely appointed Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne faced scandals and cascading outcry, in the midst of the legislative campaign, where she is herself a candidate in Calvados. Its result will reveal the credit that the majority still enjoys on Sunday…
[Mis à jour le 10 juin 2022 à 15h31] Elisabeth Borne is already playing big, less than a month after her appointment at Matignon. The Prime Minister passes her first big test this Sunday, June 12, 2022, with the first round of the legislative elections. A double challenge for the former Minister of Labor: candidate for the first time in her career in the 6th constituency of Calvados, she will also be dependent on the result of La République en Marche (Together!) at the national level during this election. . The Prime Minister is traditionally in charge of leading the majority in the battle for the Assembly.
If the local risk is minimal for Elisabeth Borne, “parachuted” into a rather favorable territory in Normandy, the same is not true across the country, where the latest polls on these legislative elections have given the “New union popular, ecological and social” (Nupes) neck and neck with the Macronist troops. In the event of a victory in a week, Elisabeth Borne will have taken a big step to establish herself as leader of the majority and of the executive, winning the loyalty of the figures of the Assembly and the government. Perhaps also from a few cumbersome allies (François Bayrou and Edouard Philippe, not to name them), at least for a time… But in the event of defeat – personal or collective – or relative majority, it is his position that would be immediately threatened.
It is therefore a double-campaign, national and local, that Elisabeth Borne has tried to carry out simultaneously, in addition to the major files of this beginning of the five-year term which are not lacking (purchasing power package with much-awaited aid for limiting the effects of inflation, new pension or education reform, ecological planning promised by Emmanuel Macron, etc.). This is not a first: Michel Rocard or Jean-Marc Ayrault had taken up the same challenge, one in 1988 and the other in 2012.
The Way of the Cross has already begun for Elisabeth Borne
This legislative campaign will in any case not have been a long calm river for Elisabeth Borne, confronted with the newfound ambitions of the left and several scandals in barely a month, from the Damien Abad affair to the controversy over the incidents of the Stade de France during the Champions League final. Just appointed, the new Minister of Solidarity provoked the first blow of the new government in mid-May, after accusations of rape revealed by Mediapart, which he disputed “with the greatest force”. In the hot seat, the one who denied “acts or gestures […] simply impossible due to [s]on handicap”, was finally maintained in the Borne government.
The Champions League final, at the Stade de France on May 28, was another jolt disrupting Elisabeth Borne’s campaign for these legislative elections. The clashes observed around the stadium, the impossibility for many supporters to attend the match, the kick-off of which had to be delayed, and the repeated use of tear gas by the police, ultimately pointed to obvious shortcomings in the organization. Shortcomings that the prefect of police ended up recognizing this week, after the denials of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and the argument of counterfeit notes which struggled to convince.
Elisabeth Borne again saw two members of her government, ministers Gérald Darmanin and Eric Dupond-Moretti, pounded by the opposition after the announcement that the CCTV images of the evening had been deleted. The latter were accused of not having ensured that all the images would be kept, or even of “destruction of evidence” to cover up possible shortcomings by the organizers and the police. The word “state scandal” will even have been pronounced, three days before the first round.
The alleged abuses of the police at the Stade de France, denounced by a large part of the left, echoed the death of a passenger in a vehicle in the 18th arrondissement of Paris during a police check last Saturday. The police, who opened fire on the vehicle, also injured the driver. Elisabeth Borne will once again have been forced to step up after the leader of rebellious France Jean-Luc Mélenchon wrote on social networks that “the police kill”. “I find it very shocking the way Jean-Luc Mélenchon systematically attacks the police with totally outrageous remarks”, commented the Prime Minister, referring to “an ongoing judicial investigation” and “an investigation by the ‘IGPN’. “The police, if they are in self-defense, they can open fire,” she recalled. The driver of the vehicle, suspected of refusing to comply, has since been indicted.
Leader and candidate, Elisabeth Borne will have tried somehow to campaign in this particular context, often proving to be inaudible. The Prime Minister, who has multiplied interventions in the media and trips to the field, ended with a handful of lightning raids in Versailles or even in the Côtes-d’Armor this week. During a meeting in Vire on Wednesday evening, in the 6th constituency of Calvados where she is herself a candidate, the Prime Minister again emphasized purchasing power and the measures promised by the government to respond to the inflation that is taking over the country.
After having assured that the State was not earning any money on fuel taxes, in the midst of soaring gasoline prices, the patron of the government reiterated her intention to “protect purchasing power”, in particular with the ” tariff shield” (on electricity and gas prices) extended until the end of the year and costing “20 to 25 billion in expenditure” for the State. Elisabeth Borne also returned to the aid for the most modest promised in September in the face of rising prices, with the direct payment of emergency compensation while waiting for a “food voucher”, as well as the revaluation of 4% of all retreats in July.
No doubt drawing lessons from the presidential election where the subject was put forward late, the Prime Minister is thus trying to hammer home that the government is acting for the portfolio of the French, at the end of a sluggish campaign. A legislative campaign dominated in the media by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Nupes who have constantly castigated the government’s record and intentions in the social field. Latest proof: the outcry caused by Elisabeth Borne herself during an exchange on the radio with a disabled person on Tuesday.
The pangs of national politics will not have prevented Elisabeth Borne from leading a “field” campaign in Calvados according to those around her. Once the new government was appointed, she decided to maintain her candidacy in the 6th constituency of Calvados: at the Palais Bourbon, from Tuesday May 17, during a meeting with the deputies of the majority she tried to motivate her troops. “I see that you are all on the ground to carry our project. I am also in the campaign, I say it, I continue this campaign!”
Never elected, the former Minister of Labor, originally from Normandy, was in fact herself invested in the 6th constituency of Calvados, which had placed Emmanuel Macron clearly in the lead in the two rounds of the presidential election (31% of the votes in the first round ). She faces Noé Gauchard, a 22-year-old environmental student who represents Nupes in this constituency and Jean-Philippe Roy for the National Rally. Alain Touret, the outgoing LREM deputy, is leaving his post after three terms as deputy since 1997. He was elected 5 years ago with 68% of the vote.
In an Ifop-Fiducial poll published this week, Elisabeth Borne was declared the winner with a first place in the first round and 39% of the vote. Noé Gauchard (Nupes) was credited with 26% of the vote when Jean-Philippe Roy (RN) was given 15% of the vote. The other candidates in the constituency are all under 10%, depriving them a priori of any chance of reaching the second round.
Who is Elisabeth Borne? Express Biography
Before being appointed Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne was Minister of Labor in the Castex government, after having held the portfolios of Transport and Ecological Transition since 2017. Relatively little known to the French, which can constitute “an asset” in her new functions, it was however “more so than were Édouard Philippe and especially Jean Castex” when they arrived at Matignon.
A graduate of Polytechnique, a tenacious technician, deemed loyal, Elisabeth Borne is in any case perceived by Macronie as having proven herself in government throughout the last five-year term. This former chief of staff of Ségolène Royal, who was also prefect and leader of large public companies such as the RATP, also has the merit of belonging to the left wing of the majority, an asset in the run-up to the legislative elections and the he hour when new social reforms are announced, starting with “the mother of the battles” on pensions.
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Her appointment was, however, viewed with caution by some members of the presidential party, sharing the opinion of many pillars of the opposition on one point: Elizabeth Borne is above all a senior civil servant, with a sense of state that borders on administrative loyalty. The profile of this engineer would not be “political enough” in their eyes and should leave plenty of room for Emmanuel Macron in this perimeter.