Elisabeth Borne. Guest of France Bleu this Tuesday, June 7, 2022, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, herself a candidate for the 2022 legislative elections in Calvados, caused controversy by advising a disabled listener to return to work…
[Mis à jour le 7 juin 2022 à 21h15] She was to be Emmanuel Macron’s “left” asset before the legislative elections. Elisabeth Borne, appointed Prime Minister in May, made a very discreet debut at Matignon, without visibly injecting any real momentum into the majority campaign. And the slightest slippage can take on inconsiderate proportions a few days before the first round of the ballot, this Sunday, June 12.
Invited this Tuesday, June 7 from France Bleu, the patron of the government caused an uproar by addressing a disabled listener. Dolorès, a woman in a wheelchair since a serious accident, wanted to alert Elisabeth Borne to her situation, pointing in particular to the method of calculating the Allowance for disabled adults (AAH), based in part on the partner’s income. In a tense exchange, the former Minister of Labor recalled that people with disabilities could benefit from aid for “everyday life”, which is “not means-tested”. But it was when she advised her interlocutor to “resume a professional activity” in connection with “structures for which it is the responsibility”, that the discomfort was felt on the set.
Faced with an Elisabeth Borne who painfully tried to develop an argument around the inclusion of people with disabilities, it was a tearful listener who finally opposed her distress. After a silence, Dolores spoke again, sobs in her voice: “I love it when the Prime Minister says to resume a professional life, you know when you arrive in a wheelchair …”, she said. , visibly annoyed. If Elisabeth Borne promised that her government would look into the “deconjugalization” of the AAH, the reactions were harsh, on the left in particular, in the evening. Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced a “brutal technocrat”, who “humiliates a woman in a wheelchair”, while the communist Fabien Roussel, also a candidate for the legislative elections, in the North, was indignant at a “freezing” sequence.
Once the new government was appointed, Elisabeth Borne found herself on the front line in the 2022 legislative campaign: the Prime Minister is traditionally in charge of leading the majority at the national level during the battle for the Assembly. It is with this deadline in mind that the recent head of the government went to the Palais Bourbon, from Tuesday May 17, 2022, to meet the deputies of the majority. “I wanted to be with you the day after my appointment,” said the Prime Minister to motivate her troops. “I see that you are all on the ground to carry our project. I am also in the campaign, I say it, I continue this campaign!”
Never elected, the former Minister of Labor, 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. It is therefore a double-campaign, national and local, that Elisabeth Borne will have to carry out at the same time, in addition to the major files of this beginning of the five-year term which are not lacking (purchasing power package with much-awaited aid to limit the effects of inflation, new pension or education reform, ecological planning promised by Emmanuel Macron, etc.). In the event of individual or collective defeat in these legislative elections, his future at Matignon would be immediately compromised. This is not a first: Michel Rocard or Jean-Marc Ayrault had taken up the same challenge, one in 1988 and the other in 2012.
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 director 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.