There will be no duel between former Prime Ministers to take over the president’s party: Elisabeth Borne withdrew this Tuesday from the race to head Renaissance for a “union candidacy” with Gabriel Attal, which consolidates his position as the first heir, albeit rebellious, of Emmanuel Macron. A little more than two months after the announcement of her candidacy, the former Prime Minister joined forces with her successor at Matignon, whose victory the vast majority of party executives considered to be a given.
The election of the successor to Stéphane Séjourné, recently appointed European Commissioner, will be held on December 7. Candidates have until Monday to submit a list for the National Council election. In addition to the general secretary, the presidents of departmental assemblies, members of the party’s executive office and those of the Territorial Assembly will be elected.
It seems unlikely that a second list will compete with that of the new president of the Macronist group in the Assembly. “Gabriel Attal has made it known that he wishes to be a candidate for the post of secretary general. In this decisive period for our country and for our political family, discussions have begun to seek a solution of complementarity rather than division,” write the two “camps” in a joint press release. “Gabriel Attal and Elisabeth Borne have thus chosen a candidacy of union and unity. Neither the situation of our country, nor that of our party would support division,” they continue. If the election of Gabriel Attal is confirmed by the vote of the activists, “Elisabeth Borne will be president of the National Council” (a sort of party parliament), according to the text.
“The beginning of attalism”
The former Prime Minister, who has just published a book on her experience at Matignon in which she hardly spares the president, had received the support of several executives of the presidential movement such as former ministers Aurore Bergé and Clément Beaune, and the former boss of the group at the Assembly Sylvain Maillard. The Calvados MP immediately tried to put pressure on her undeclared competitor by believing that it was not “customary” to combine the functions of first leader of the party and president of the group in the Assembly. . Because Gabriel Attal was elected president of the Macronist group in July. However, the question of the accumulation of mandates is still not addressed in the joint press release.
The rallying of Elisabeth Borne removes an obstacle in the path of Gabriel Attal, at odds with Emmanuel Macron since the dissolution. The agreement announced this Tuesday “corresponds to the desire for unity reiterated many times by the President of the Republic, so it goes in the right direction”, judges an advisor to the executive. Founder of En Marche in 2016, which became La République en marche in 2017, Emmanuel Macron is the honorary president of Renaissance, the new name of the party since 2022. “The fact that Attal takes the party and the group, that definitively acts the end of Macronism, and the beginning of attalism,” judges one of the former Prime Minister’s supporters.