Elisabeth Borne. After the reshuffle, Elisabeth Borne must deliver her general policy statement on July 6 in the Assembly. Having refused the vote of confidence, will the Prime Minister make herself heard by the deputies?
[Mis à jour le 5 juillet 2022 à 16h16] Expected before Parliament on July 6, Elisabeth Borne will not seek the confidence of deputies after her general policy statement. The risk is too great of seeing the newly reconstituted government overthrown by a majority opposition in the National Assembly. If the decision is wise, it is nevertheless an admission of weakness of the majority which recognizes not to be able to collect 289 votes as indicated Olivier Véran, new government spokesperson Monday July 4 at the from the Council of Ministers: “We counted the number of votes that the Prime Minister would have been sure to collect in the event of a vote of confidence, we are not certain that the conditions for this confidence would have been met”.
With or without a vote of confidence, Elisabeth Borne will have to jostle with the opposition forces of the Assembly for the next five-year term. And the confrontation will begin tomorrow with the radical left of La France insoumise decided to be a frontal opposition and closed to any compromise, it has even already planned the filing of a motion of censure against Elisabeth Borne and her government. As for the other forces on the left, they are also firm on the opposition but seem more open to discussions, in the same line as the Republican right. The debates therefore promise to be heated in the Assembly and the legitimacy of Elisabeth Borne will be easily challenged and attacked with the absence of the vote of confidence. With only a relative majority, and still temporarily reduced after the appointment of deputies to the government, Elisabeth Borne risks being heckled at best, hissed at worst and colliding with walls at the Palais-Bourbon. The presidential majority runs the same risks despite the apparent desire to find agreements or rather “consensus” text by text. “There will be texts that will achieve consensus, globally, on the arc from left to right. Some texts will have the favorable assent of the right, others the assent of the left. We are going to work and move forward as that”, still hoped Olivier Véran.
Will Elisabeth Borne be weakened in the National Assembly?
Too technocratic, not political enough, without legitimacy… Elisabeth Borne has come under a lot of criticism since her appointment and her reappointment as Prime Minister. Attacks which are likely to continue in the hemicycle in the absence of a vote of confidence. More than criticism, this is a “political problem” for Elisabeth Borne, estimated the interim president of the LR group and deputy, Annie Genevard, on July 4 on BFM TV. The tenant of Matignon pays the costs of the “eroded” confidence of elected officials in a “President of the Republic [qui] had an absolute majority and used and abused it without ever taking our proposals into account”. An erosion so significant that the entire Nupes – coalition of LFI, PS, EELV and PCF – will support the motion of censure tabled by LFI according to information from the Parisian this July 5th. Despite this movement, the measure cannot succeed without the support of Republicans and the far right who refuse to take part in the initiative. “[Elisabeth Borne] would not manage to obtain the confidence therefore from there to bring down the government by combining our voices with La France insoumise, no, I believe that Les Républicains are a responsible formation which will not engage in this path “, thus indicated the MP LR As for the RN, its refusal to sign the motion of censure is not so much a mark of support for the majority as a symbol of deep rejection of rebellious France.
The confidence of deputies in the government still seems unattainable but the presidential majority and Elisabeth Borne remain hopeful. “Trust cannot be decreed, it is patiently built text after text”, clung Olivier Véran, new government spokesperson at the end of the Council of Ministers on July 4, renewing the majority’s wish to cooperate with opposition forces.
Why does Elisabeth Borne refuse to request the vote of confidence?
The news fell on Monday April 4: Elisabeth Borne intends to dispense with the vote of confidence in front of the deputies after her general policy speech in front of the National Assembly, July 6, 2022 at 3 p.m. A break with the use allowed by the Constitution. The decision is logical and it is the opposite which would have been surprising because with a majority of 250 deputies – even less on the day of the speech – impossible to hope to gather the 289 votes necessary for the government to be maintained and dubbed by the majority of the hemicycle. “Asking this question would be suicidal”, added in this sense the president of the LR group in the lower house of Parliament, Olivier Marleix. A formula that seems exaggerated but true because losing the vote of confidence would force the government and Elisabeth Borne to resign to form a new executive.
Despite the risks, elected representatives of the majority pushed Elisabeth Borne to submit to the vote of confidence to establish her legitimacy and put an end to criticism from the opposition, in particular from the left, which has been crying out for “denial of democracy” since the Prime Minister’s announcement. An opinion that does not share article 50-1 of the Constitution which allows the government to escape the vote of confidence. “In the event that the vote turns out to be unfavorable to the government’s policy, it would not be forced to be overthrown, of course, but it would find itself in a comical situation where it would still be in office while a majority parliamentarians dispute it”, explained the constitutionalist Benjamin Morel to the Figaro The 4th of July.
Elisabeth Borne was appointed Prime Minister by Emmanuel Macron on May 16, 2022, after weeks of speculation following the latter’s re-election on April 24. The Head of State had assured a few days before this appointment that he wanted by his side “someone sensitive to social, environmental and productive issues”, a personality “embodiing both ‘renewal’ and at the same time time ‘someone solid, capable of doing 20 hours in front of fifteen million viewers and of holding in the cauldron of the Assembly, during questions to the government'”, also said the entourage of the head of state. All with “an asserted ecological sensitivity because Emmanuel Macron has promised to appoint a ‘prime minister in charge of ecological planning'” (Le Monde).
Elisabeth Borne thus imposed herself as the one who ticked the most boxes in this equation. It even became obvious in the very last days before his appointment, especially after the outcry provoked in the majority by the hypothesis Catherine Vautrin, former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy who had fought against marriage for all during the quinquennium by Francois Hollande.
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 director 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.