Her sexual orientation, her vomiting in the toilets when she was chief of staff to the Minister of Ecology Ségolène Royal, the sordid details of her father’s suicide… The so modest Elisabeth Borne would no doubt have hated attending the hearing that took place. is held, this Wednesday, May 24, at the Nanterre court, in a cozy atmosphere, before a sparse audience.
This moment, however, she wanted it to take place… The Prime Minister indeed had little taste for the biography devoted to her by the journalist Bérengère Bonte, The Secret (editions of the Archipelago). A work of which she attacks the publisher in the name of invasion of privacy, demanding the withdrawal of certain passages in the event of reprinting.
Beyond intimate indiscretions, the debate is important: do we still have the right to secrecy, once through the doors of Matignon? Elisabeth Borne refuses for her part to give in to the “tyranny of transparency”, assures her lawyer. “It’s perfectly consistent with what Madame Borne has always been: a discreet woman”. The “peoplization” of political personnel, the family photos at Matignon to which his predecessor, Jean Castex, lent himself? Very little for her. “Talking about his health, his anorexia [un terme qui ne figure pas dans le livre, NDLR], of his cadaverous thinness, does it feed the public debate? Nothing justifies recounting the scene of vomiting in the toilets…”, assures his advice, under the impassive gaze of Bérengère Bonte. A passage which Elisabeth Borne requests the deletion, unlike those concerning the suicide of his father, survivor of Auschwitz whose tragic fate she herself evoked in her general policy statement last July – “a little under pressure from her advisers”, according to her lawyer. “She does not pursue these passages because she knows that he will be criticized for having talked about this subject before. But they hit her and hurt her.”
Ambiguities
A crest line revealing the ambiguities of Elisabeth Borne’s position, identified by the defense lawyer with a verve that barely warms up the debates. Last November, the tenant of Matignon agreed herself with Paris Match : “It is natural that [les Français] want to know who they are dealing with”. As for her love life, did she not guide the journalists by mentioning in October, in the columns of Stubborn, a mysterious “companion”, who will turn out to be in a civil partnership with another woman since 2021? Moreover, the “secret” had lent herself to the game of the interview, receiving the journalist at length as part of her book project.
Popular and media curiosity, insistence from advisers… Exercising the highest functions without giving in to voyeurism seems to have become impossible. “At this degree of political and symbolic authority, everything that concerns you is likely to have a public interest”, goes so far as to assure the defense lawyer. As if the hell of Matignon, which exhausts the bodies and torments the spirits, consisted first, for the modest ones, in finding themselves in full light. The deliberation will be delivered on June 30.