Elisabeth Borne has announced that she is a candidate for the post of secretary general of Renaissance, the presidential party. Ambitions that could place her in rivalry with Gabriel Attal.
After her re-election in the 6th constituency of Calvados on July 7, Elisabeth Borne remained very discreet during the summer break. However, the MP seems to have new ambitions. In an interview with Parisianshe declared that she was a candidate for the head of the presidential Renaissance party. She would thus take the place of Stéphane Séjourné, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs who has resigned.
“With this Assembly, no one is going to implement their program. This political instability gives a different role to political parties: we need them to give hope to the French, to develop a vision, a project, for the country. I want to put my experience at the service of this work, with humility and a lot of collegiality: so, yes, I am a candidate for the leadership of Renaissance,” she declared. Elisabeth Borne’s objective in this role is clear: “to bring together in a very broad way.” “A vital issue is to preserve the unity of this party, which is not intended to be a chapel or a presidential stable,” she specified.
Determined, the MP could find herself facing a tough opponent, Gabriel Attal. If the Prime Minister resigns, he could then keep an important role in the presidential party. For the MP, this would not be the case, since the latter is already president of the party group in the Assembly: “Gabriel Attal is president of our group in the National Assembly and that is very important, because we need his energy and his talent. He said it himself, his goal is the group. So I think he wants to continue to lead it, rather than becoming secretary general of the party, which would lead him to leave the group”. Elisabeth Borne states that “traditionally, it is not customary” to combine these two positions.
Gabriel Attal, a serious rival?
For the moment, Gabriel Attal has not revealed his intentions, even if nothing prevents him from combining the two functions. If the resigning Prime Minister were to run, Elisabeth Borne’s chances of victory could be reduced : “I don’t see how she can beat Attal with the activists,” he assured. A parliamentary, as has reported RMC. Elisabeth Borne is however supported by the minister resigned responsible for Equality between women and men, Aurore Bergé, who declared on France Inter that she would be “alongside Elisabeth Borne to lead this campaign”. “II believe that we need this collective spirit, this spirit of unity that she is capable of,” justified the resigning minister. Clément Beaune, former Minister of Transport, also took the side of the former Prime Minister on TF1: “a former Prime Minister, a woman, elected from a rural constituency who won against the National Rally, she is an asset for our political family. And above all, she is a hard worker,” he boasted. They both refute an “anti-Attal candidacy.”
The climate between the two politicians has been tense since Gabriel Attal took over from Elisabeth Borne as head of government. She had also denounced his successor’s unemployment insurance reform project and had tried to position herself against him during the election of the head of the Renaissance parliamentary group in the National Assembly, before changing her mind.
The outcome of this election will have to wait a little while since the presidential party is not expected to meet in Congress until the fall, although no date has yet been set. At the end of this, 150 members of the National Council will be elected and will in turn choose the party’s secretary general.