Elisabeth Borne. Elisabeth Borne will be on the Daily set, this Tuesday, August 30, 2022. Facing Yann Barthès, could the Prime Minister make new announcements?
[Mis à jour le 30 août 2022 à 17h26] After a few weeks of vacation, active return for Elisabeth Borne and the government. The Prime Minister has been on many fronts in recent days, in a complicated social context in France, undermined by rising daily prices, both from a food and energy point of view. At the supermarket as at home, bills are soaring for citizens and answers are awaited. After speaking to the Medef, the head of government will be present on television, this Tuesday, August 30, 2022. Indeed, she responded favorably to the invitation of Yann Barthès and will therefore answer his questions live on the set of the Quotidien program, broadcast on TMC from 7:25 p.m.
If the content of the forthcoming exchange between the presenter and Elisabeth Borne has not been specified, it is a safe bet that the Prime Minister will be questioned on the main themes of this start of the 2022 school year, namely inflation, energy prices, energy stocks or ecological planning. There should, a priori, be no major announcements made by the tenant of Matignon who, by coming to Daily, should seek to reach a large audience, the day after a record return for Yann Barthès on channel number 10. 1.14 million viewers followed the talk show between 7:27 p.m. and 8:34 p.m. Monday evening, representing a 6.3% market share.
Elisabeth Borne calls for energy sobriety
Before the Medef on Monday, Elisabeth Borne was unequivocal: we must reduce energy consumption to avoid shortages. It is up to each company to establish a sobriety plan to determine the measures supposed to allow savings. Le Figaro, the president of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux explained before the Prime Minister’s speech that “the sobriety plan on which we are discussing mainly concerns two subjects: the temperature in the offices (…) and daily mobility , by pushing alternative transport solutions to the private car”. But it will be necessary to go further according to him and it “will also be necessary more generally to rethink our production model to make it more sober.”
The Prime Minister insisted that the government should set an example in terms of energy sobriety and added that since July all ministries had been working to present measures to reduce energy consumption by 10%. But the State and companies are not the only ones to have to mobilize, citizens have also been invited to “question themselves on what they can do at their level and taking into account their means”. Elisabeth Borne made an aside on eco-gestures by announcing an upcoming communication campaign. It should be noted that the necessary efforts will not be requested from people in energy poverty, underlined the tenant of Matignon. If they are called upon to do their part, citizens will not be controlled on energy expenditure, indicated the Prime Minister in the interview given to the Parisian on August 28, but they are not spared a possible power shortage either.
Elisabeth Borne implements ecological planning
In addition to energy sobriety, the Prime Minister laid the groundwork for planning and the ecological transition that must take place in companies. “Each sector will have objectives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change and will have to define a list of very concrete actions to be taken,” she said. The first priorities for planning have been unveiled: forests, water and carbon-free and renewable energies. But the planning will not be done without the reorientation of investments towards sectors of the future such as “decarbonization, the evolution of uses or even the circular economy”. In her speech, Elisabeth Borne added that companies that do not get in tune will lead to their loss: “Those that do not transform will see their attractiveness reduced until they disappear, while those that engage in the ecological transition will grow and develop. You are innovators, you have gone through and overcome other transformations, other revolutions. And we are going to help you do that.”
The Prime Minister sets the goal of full employment
Her speech before the Medef was an opportunity for Elisabeth Borne to address the issue of full employment and to talk about it as an objective. The government wishes to tend towards this ideal and consequently, the Prime Minister announced a bill at the start of the school year on unemployment insurance. Of course, a large part of the project will rest on the shoulders of the companies which will have to take up the “huge” challenge of recruitment and training: “The key is the attractiveness of the professions: to recruit, we must guarantee a better quality of life at work, investing in all the brakes such as employee mobility. There will be no full employment without good employment”, insisted Elisabeth Borne.
Will Elisabeth Borne tax superprofits?
Who of the tax on corporate superprofits? The subject was not broached by Elisabeth Borne during her speech before the Medef except quickly to answer the president of the employers’ union, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux: “No Mr. President, there is no of superprofit on the side of the State”. A few hours before the Prime Minister’s speech, the boss of bosses denounced on France Inter the “absurdity” and hypocrisy of the possible measure by estimating that “the biggest super profiteer is the State: tax revenues for the 1st half of 2022 increased by 27 billion euros, thanks to the corporate superprofits. And to add that the superprofits are “good news for these companies, the employees but also the French”.
Still, the taxation of superprofits is still not on the agenda but Elisabeth Borne does not completely close the door to the idea as she explained in the columns of Parisian August 28. “The most effective and concrete thing for the French is when a company, when it can, lowers prices for the consumer and gives purchasing power to its employees. […] In the current period, everyone must be responsible”, declared the Prime Minister who intends to follow the government’s policy on taxes: “We have not stopped lowering taxes, I am not going to radically change my position by putting myself at impose taxes on all businesses. On the other hand, no one would understand that companies generate exceptional profits even though the French may be worried about their purchasing power.
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.
Elisabeth Borne appointed Prime Minister
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.