Gabriel Borne was appointed Prime Minister this Tuesday, January 9 and succeeds Elisabeth Borne in Matignon. The new head of government clarified his objectives while the member for Calvados praised his results after a forced departure.
Matignon has changed hands. Gabriel Attal took possession of the Prime Minister’s office during the transfer of power with Elisabeth Borne, only a few hours after the formalization of his appointment in a press release from the Elysée, this Tuesday, January 9. A handover which took less than an hour – between the private exchanges of the former Prime Minister and her successor and the speeches of the two personalities – but full of emotions for an Elisabeth Borne with a sometimes quavering voice and a Gabriel Attal trembling as he delivered his speech.
“Welcome to Matignon” and “thank you for everything”
Opening the ball, Elisabeth Borne welcomed the Prime Minister to Matignon, assuring him of her “confidence” to take over as well as her support. Opposite, the young 34-year-old politician thanked the head of government and praised, without dwelling, the latter’s record: “We all know what we owe you.” The one who leaves the Hôtel Matignon for the benches of the National Assembly as a deputy for Calvados, in a speech less bitter than her letter of resignation, has herself taken it upon herself to recall a record of which she is proud: she underlined the number of texts that she had adopted, sometimes with difficulty, on the budget, pension reform, the immigration law and 50 other texts in the space of twenty months. “I have never backed away from any obstacle, from any reform. I have held without trembling the course set by the President of the Republic” she declared during her speech. But the time has come for the passing of the baton and Elisabeth Borne indicated that much “remains to be accomplished” and spoke of the need to “build a stronger and fairer France in a more sovereign Europe”.
Gabriel Attal’s roadmap clarified
For his first speech as Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal specified the first elements of his roadmap and, unsurprisingly, the former Minister of National Education announced that he would make the school “one of [ses] priorities”, praising the measures taken during his five-month stint at the ministry: “I take with me to Matignon the cause of school, I reaffirm school as the mother of our battles”. More broadly, Gabriel Attal promised to pursue two objectives in Emmanuel Macron’s political line: “keep control of our destiny and unleash our French potential”. An announcement which confirms the pursuit of “at the same time”, Emmanuel Macron’s much-maligned trademark. On this subject, the Prime Minister promised to “always listen and always respect the oppositions” and to speak with them as Elisabeth Borne did on various subjects.
Gabriel Attal did not fail to thank, on several occasions, the head of state with whom he shares the experience of rising to the head of the country at a young age. Anticipating criticism of the lack of experience which often goes hand in hand with the youth of a personality, he assured to see in the fact that “the youngest President of the Republic in history appoints the youngest Prime Minister of the ‘history’, a symbol of ‘audacity and movement’.