Elisabeth Borne. It’s time for the second round! While Together! intends to keep the majority in the Assembly, Elisabeth Borne engages in a decisive duel in Calvados. What are his chances of winning?
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[Mis à jour le 19 juin 2022 à 19h02] The second round of legislative elections is in full swing. This election, which comes nearly two months after the presidential election, allows the French to designate the deputies who will represent their constituencies for the next five years. The Prime Minister is among the 417 candidates invested by Together! (ENS), the political formation organized around Emmanuel Macron. It is also one of the 280 duels between the presidential camp and the candidates of Nupes, the left-wing coalition led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Arriving in the lead in the 6th constituency of Calvados in the first round, she faces Noé Gauchard today.
If the Prime Minister were to bow against the Nupes candidate, she could not keep her post at Matignon, as the new government has committed to for any defeated minister. The other issue of the ballot is that of the confrontation between these two opposing political parties on subjects as diverse as purchasing power, the maintenance of order or the climate. While the Nupes made a breakthrough during this electoral period, the capacity of the current presidential majority to reach the threshold of 289 deputies in the National Assembly and thus to obtain an absolute majority is questioned. This evening’s results therefore promise to be decisive, both for the presidential majority and for the Prime Minister.
Elisabeth Borne won in the first round of the legislative elections 2022. On Sunday June 12, the Prime Minister obtained 34.34% of the vote in the 6th constituency of Calvados. She came first and qualified for this second round, ahead of the Nupes candidate Noé Gauchard (24.54%) and Jean-Philippe Roy of the RN (21.71), according to the complete results communicated by the Ministry of the Interior.
Never elected, the former Minister of Labour, originally from Normandy, was indeed herself invested in the 6th constituency of Calvados, which had placed Emmanuel Macron clearly in the lead in the two rounds of the presidential election (31% of the votes in the first turn, when Jean-Luc Mélenchon won only 17.65% of the votes cast there). She faced Noé Gauchard, a 22-year-old environmental student who represents Nupes in this constituency and Jean-Philippe Roy for the National Rally. Alain Touret, the outgoing LREM deputy, left office after three terms as deputy since 1997. He was elected 5 years ago with 68% of the vote. The challenge of today’s vote is to know to whom the main reserve of votes from the first round, resulting from the RN vote (21.74%, 10,447 votes), will refer. Especially since four other candidates stamped on the left were present in the first round, as was a representative of Reconquest, but also one from the sovereignist right, a various right and a various center. The answer tonight.
What are his chances of winning in Calvados?
Sunday June 12, the Prime Minister obtained 34.34% of the votes in the 6th constituency of Calvados. She came first and qualified for the second round, ahead of Nupes candidate Noé Gauchard (24.54%) and Jean-Philippe Roy of the RN (21.71). For this second round, the local risk is minimal for Elisabeth Borne, “parachuted” into a rather favorable territory in Normandy, where she inherited a macronist land which voted 30.78% in favor of the President of the Republic in 1st round of the presidential election, when Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he only collected 17.65% of the votes cast.
The same is not true across the country, where the “New Popular, Ecological and Social Union” (Nupes) came neck and neck with the Macronist troops in the first round. In the event of victory this evening, Elisabeth Borne will have taken a big step to establish herself as leader of the majority and of the executive, winning the loyalty of the figures of the Assembly and the government. Perhaps also from a few cumbersome allies (François Bayrou and Edouard Philippe, not to name them), at least for a while… But in the event of defeat – personal or collective – or relative majority, it is his position that would be immediately threatened.
A first elective mandate for Elisabeth Borne
If the voters of Calvados offered her victory tonight, it would be a first for the Prime Minister. At 61, polytechnician Elisabeth Borne has been minister three times but she has never been elected. During Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term, she was entrusted with the portfolio of Transport (2017-2019), then of Ecological and Inclusive Transition (2019-2020), and finally of Labor (2020-2022). So why this desire to get into politics? Elisabeth Borne is competing in the legislative elections under the banner of the presidential party LREM in the 6th district of Calvados. “Calvados is the cradle of my family. For example, my grandfather was for many years mayor of Livarot”, declared the candidate on this subject, quoted by Franceinfo. But these personal memories are probably not the only reason: relatively unknown to the general public, Elisabeth Borne is often described by her detractors (in particular by Nupes) as a “technocrat”, a high-ranking official detached from the issues on the ground. Being elected by the citizens could be a way of legitimizing the Prime Minister. Mention should also be made of the social-reformist movement that it supports, Territories of Progress, very established in Calvados.
The Way of the Cross has already begun for Elisabeth Borne
This legislative campaign will in any case not have been a long calm river for Elisabeth Borne, confronted with the newfound ambitions of the left and several scandals in barely a month, from the Damien Abad affair to the controversy over the incidents of the Stade de France during the Champions League final. Just appointed, the new Minister of Solidarity provoked the first blow of the new government in mid-May, after accusations of rape revealed by Mediapart, which he disputed “with the greatest force”. In the hot seat, the one who denied “acts or gestures […] simply impossible due to [s]on handicap”, was finally maintained in the Borne government. On June 14, in the middle of the week between the two rounds, Mediapart revealed two new testimonies, one of which concerns an attempted rape for facts dating back to 2009 2010. Sweeping away these accusations by calling them “allegations” which he “categorically refutes”, the ex-LR has since been the target of feminist NGOs and rights defenders on social networks.
Faced with the outcry caused by these new complaints, Matignon told Mediapart after the publication of the article: “The Prime Minister cannot comment on the anonymous testimonies that you report but she invites these women to file a complaint so that justice can do its job”. The statement also read: “She does it as Prime Minister but also as a woman.” But Elisabeth Borne could not escape for long: repeatedly questioned while she was campaigning in Calvados, she finally replied: “I am not a judge and investigations are not done with anonymous testimonies” . This pending case has provoked the indignation of many citizens during the past week.
The Champions League final, at the Stade de France on May 28, was another jolt disrupting Elisabeth Borne’s campaign for these legislative elections. The clashes observed around the stadium, the impossibility for many supporters to attend the match, the kick-off of which had to be delayed, and the repeated use of tear gas by the police, ultimately pointed to obvious shortcomings in the organization. Shortcomings that the prefect of police ended up recognizing, after the denials of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and the argument of counterfeit notes which struggled to convince.
Elisabeth Borne again saw two members of her government, ministers Gérald Darmanin and Eric Dupond-Moretti, pounded by the opposition after the announcement that the CCTV images of the evening had been deleted. The latter were accused of not having ensured that all the images would be kept, or even of “destruction of evidence” to cover up possible shortcomings by the organizers and the police. The word “state scandal” will even have been pronounced, three days before the first round. As the second round unfolds today, rumors of disapproval regarding this event have not ceased. It remains to be seen to what extent this will have tarnished the public image of the Prime Minister.
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 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 time when new social reforms are announced, starting with “the mother of battles” on pensions.
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Her appointment was, however, viewed with caution by some members of the presidential party, sharing the opinion of many pillars of the opposition on one point: Elizabeth Borne is above all a senior civil servant, with a sense of state that borders on administrative loyalty. The profile of this engineer would not be “political enough” in their eyes and should leave plenty of room for Emmanuel Macron in this perimeter.