Who would’ve believed that ? On January 31, François Ruffin looks at Elisabeth Borne and sees Alain Juppé, while Fabien Roussel in a slip confuses her with Margaret Thatcher. The physical resemblance to the first is not striking, the political comparison with the second seems grotesque. Such is public life in its caricatures, its excesses, its zigzags. It must be said that since she has been at Matignon, the Prime Minister is disturbing, rarely where we expect her. She never ceases to amaze, for better and for worse. “We discover her as one who clenches her teeth,” rejoices a minister. “Forrest Gump”, dares a former: she would rather be the one who, without having all the qualities, fills the holes each time in a government team…
You see well that you see badly. The pension reform is the prototype of the counterpoint. Elisabeth Borne dreamed if not of an agreement, in any case of an armed peace with Laurent Berger and the CFDT, she concluded a pact with Eric Ciotti and LR, still pampered in the interview at the JDD of February 5. She seemed armed for this socio-economic fight. She never had a regal image, even if, in 2020, for a few hours, the idea of sending her to Place Beauvau germinated in the heads of the secretary general of the Elysée Alexis Kohler and the very influential Richard Ferrand. One could therefore think that a file like pensions would be more in its DNA. His technical dexterity is not in dispute. When the text is unveiled, Matignon centers it around three pillars: justice – the word was added against the advice of certain ministers and will make the Elysée Palace a little chafouin -, balance, progress, it’s beautiful as the antique. And precisely it is probably a little dated. It is useless to be too square in an era that is not going well. This is the heart of the Borne problem. On the one hand, reason. “We find what she is deeply: she is convinced that the pay-as-you-go pension is the keystone of our social history and her rational prism leads her to consider that if we do not manage to carry out a reform like that -there, documented, it is that we have a problem of collective solidarity”, exposes a faithful. On the other, the country, a part at least, which refuses to believe that two and two make four. And who is fighting. She spoke about it with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who told her that “Germans are not panicking about inflation or the energy crisis”. Yes, the French are not Germans. Since its presentation on January 10, the pension reform continues to lose support in public opinion. Our Cartesian Prime Minister failed to convince.
During the yellow vests crisis, one point struck Elisabeth Borne: the prefects told her that people did not even manage to form delegations to be received. Discussing under these conditions is mission impossible. During the presidential campaign, she has some difficulty in grasping the state of the country. She does not understand how nothing manages to have a hold on Marine Le Pen. She arrives at Matignon with what looks like an impossible roadmap: “How do we respond to this impression that is spreading more and more, according to which we can send everything for a ride since it couldn’t be worse?”
Would the woman of dialogue that she claims to be be condemned to soliloquy? Affirming on the eve of the January 31 demonstrations that the legal retirement age of 64 is “non-negotiable” locks him into an image of firmness. On February 2, she transforms her intervention on television into a techno parade. “She sometimes has a scary tone,” a member of her government once whispered. Yes, she can be brittle, regularly forgets to greet the collaborators of other ministers, surprises her audience, as when she launches to the new national secretary of EELV Marine Tondelier about young climate activists: “They are dark. ” Its ability to display the famous “poker face” must not deceive, impassiveness is not neutrality. In her discussions with her ministers, Elisabeth Borne talks about cash. “It rises quickly in the towers in sound volume”, says one of them. “Self-confident like all polytechnicians,” adds the mayor of a large city.
Behind a very Jospinian appearance (a reference to her first steps at Matignon, in the office of the herald of the plural left, which is above all a polite way of indicating that she can seem horribly boring) hides a rather formidable gunslinger Tata. That Agnès Buzyn, the former Minister of Health caught up in the legal consequences of the Covid pandemic, complains of not having caught the attention of the executive and she draws in a small committee: “I was minister and I had complicated matters to manage. I have always made myself heard when necessary. If you are a minister and you do not make yourself heard, you resign. Period. His story, I find it zero credible and zero responsibility.” Let Yaël Braun-Pivet push herself from the collar and here is the President of the National Assembly dressed for the winter: “She carries her national destiny, she no longer considers herself at all as a character of the presidential majority.”
“Borne? As its name suggests”, once dropped Ségolène Royal about her former director of cabinet for the Environment between 2014 and 2015. When the former candidate for the Elysée Palace remembers the good – really? – memory of Elisabeth Borne, the reply is not long in coming: “Working with her was very formative, it allows you to expect everything…” Each has its own trajectory and the cowries will be well guarded.
“The boy stuff, you can’t imagine how stupid it is”
To lecture the bosses is not displeasing to him. One day she calls Luc Rémont, the CEO of EDF, and tells him that she does not appreciate that the load shedding plans so often mentioned are not ready: “What an idea to want to warn people so late!” Another is the CEO of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné, who hears about the country. She reproaches him for his stiffness – the hospital and the charity, we know the story – in the face of blockages in the refineries and suggests that he take inspiration… from her, who had commissioned executives to run the machine when she was in charge. the RATP. “At first, he almost yelled at me! At the end, he said, ‘Thank you for your advice’.“
In September 2022, Edouard Philippe and François Bayrou were offended at being deprived of a microphone during the Renaissance launch meeting by the leaders of the new presidential formation. The distant successor to Edith Cresson shrugs her shoulders: “The boys’ stuff, you can’t imagine how stupid it is, I spend my time managing that.” I’m going to show them who Raoul is…
This is hardly enough to bring her closer to the great fan of Audiard who also happens to be head of state. Schoolboy humor, Emmanuel Macron, who asks for it more often than not, finds it more easily with Gérald Darmanin than with Elisabeth Borne. But perhaps, after all, this is not the primary mission of a head of government. One would have thought that it would be subservient to the President of the Republic, it is more complicated. Obviously, it does not have a political surface that would put it in a position to impose a balance of power. So she plays differently. Head dinner at the Elysée, September 28, 2022. “Madame Borne speaks. She mumbles”, describes a guest. Make no mistake: it’s not that she has her tongue in her pocket, no, it’s that she doesn’t empty her bag in front of witnesses. She understood that the great leader hated outcry in the public square (and what could be more public, of course, than a casual discussion between politicians?). “Emmanuel Macron was traumatized by what he saw of the duo François Hollande-Manuel Valls, he especially does not want a Prime Minister with whom he should negotiate”, recalls an important member of the government. She therefore prefers one-on-one meetings and, casually, on the legal retirement age (65 or 64) or on the time required for discussions, she brings the president to move. The complementarity of this duo for whom a local election has long been a concept nevertheless continues to raise questions.
She does not balk at the castagne. The first time she receives Marine Le Pen as part of her consultations with the presidents of the parliamentary groups, the jokes are there. The second time, it’s the boxing gloves. “Working people are fed up with those who don’t give a damn!” remarks the head of government.” “You took your card from LR, what is this right-wing speech?” Interrupts the finalist of the Presidential “There is no camera, we can talk to each other normally,” replies Borne. “We washed ourselves!” Le Pen slipped out. seems foreign. It’s a quality. Including in public life, are we sure? She is aware that politics is not her strong point, so she got into it from the first minute. May 16 2022, in the wake of the transfer of power with Jean Castex, without anyone knowing, she went to see Richard Ferrand, still at the Hôtel de Lassay, to whom she confided that she had been informed of her appointment only a few hours earlier.
We readily believe her to be of left-wing sensibility, that’s her story, but there again, she arises elsewhere. The immigration bill presented by the Darmanin-Dussopt duo features the famous residence permit for shortage occupations. Until the last minute, she wondered about her advisability, especially not wanting to give the prosecution a hold of favoring a call for air. Prefect one day (she was for a year and two months), prefect always? It is fully aware of the practical complications caused by exceptional admissions to French territory of foreigners. Word of Prime Minister, the road is straight but the slope is steep. Right, not systematically; strong, more and more.