Make no mistake about it: chance has nothing to do with it, she did everything to be at Matignon. But the circumstances wanted to add their two cents: she almost only stayed there for a month. On January 10, after almost eight months at the head of the government, Elisabeth Borne begins, with the presentation of the pension reform, a sequence which will modify, whatever the outcome, her personal and political trajectory. “My personal story forges a character: there are quite a few things that scare me,” she used to say.
In the aftermath of the June legislative elections which deprived Emmanuel Macron of an absolute majority in the Assembly, the Prime Minister confides bluntly: “Everyone is a little shocked by what happened.” Everything, namely the results of the polls, of course, but also the state of the country. “People think they can throw everything away because it couldn’t be worse anyway: how do you answer that?” she wonders. The vertigo is there, she tries to oppose reason. “We have a perimeter of reasonable people which allows us to move forward, then assures Elisabeth Borne. I have no doubt that we find 290 deputies (i.e. the majority of a chamber which has 577 elected members) to vote for many measures Michel Rocard, with a relative majority, created the RMI and the CSG.”
But reason also dictates something else to him, which is at the heart of the problem of this five-year term: “We are crazy if we say that 100% of the Macron program must be applied.” Since voters voted for the outgoing president in the second round for the sole purpose of blocking Marine Le Pen, where to draw the line? What is the legitimacy of the project? Emmanuel Macron came out on top in the first round of the presidential election, underline his aficionados.
During the campaign, the Head of State spoke about pension reform. This is even why he lost his feathers, and deputies, assure his supporters. For Elisabeth Borne, there is no shadow of a doubt. This project, it must be carried: “We are not going to start the debate again which was validated during the campaign otherwise we are going in circles.” In September, she said: “It’s a complicated reform in substance, so you have to be very careful about the form. My method is consultation.” She wants this to be her trademark, especially since it is not strictly speaking that of macronism, long critical of the famous intermediary bodies. She aims for this to be her own added value, her response to those who, even in the president’s entourage, wonder what more she brings. For example, she defends the CFDT, when others, around Emmanuel Macron, have already written off the reforming union. Sometimes she imagines herself in Laurent Berger’s place, under pressure, and she tells herself that she would be a little fed up: “The more he gets taken to task in the newspaper, the less it helps him and therefore the less it helps me.” The former Minister of Labor has not forgotten that the severe criticism he had issued of his unemployment insurance reform had hurt, especially in the ranks of the majority deputies.
The Prime Minister speaks, but do we hear her?
In 2003, one of his predecessors at Matignon, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, won the support of the CFDT at the last minute for his pension reform, at the cost of a small quarrel with his Minister of Social Affairs François Fillon. Will she manage to move the lines? Elisabeth Borne speaks, but do we hear her?, we sometimes wonder. The president likes the publicity stunts, one day the announcement on YouTube of the RER in the metropolises, another on Twitter the free condoms. This time, there are blows to be taken; in the purest logic of the Fifth Republic, there is therefore room for the Prime Minister.
She plays her score, taking care not to rush Emmanuel Macron. “She never comes into opposition with the president in front of other members of the government, she remains neutral which gives her weight to then try to weigh bilaterally against him”, observes a minister. In 2022, she weighed in so that we leave time for debate before presenting the pension project, no doubt she is still weighing now so that a postponement to 64 years of the legal retirement age is favored accompanied by an acceleration of the Touraine law on the extension of the contribution period, rather than a departure at age 65. Before meeting Eric Ciotti, the new president of LR, on December 21, she discussed a lot with the senators, whose competence on the subject she appreciates, one would say rationality, and had several interviews with the leader of the senators. LR Bruno Retailleau, apart from their official meeting in mid-December.
“She chooses her fights, raises a minister, there are two of them. There are retirements and the fact of coming out of the 49.3 alive, there it is a subject of abnegation and resilience, she avoids any missteps in the face of to a series of pitfalls.” Elisabeth 1, 2, 3…, Elisabeth 10: she became the queen of motions, ten times she released 49.3 on financial bills before escaping the censorship of her opponents. But it’s not a game: Matignon narrowly avoided the publication on social networks of the Prime Minister wearing a 49.3 jersey during a Christmas dinner for ministers.
His January challenge (and the following months) will not only be parliamentary: it is also a fight in front of public opinion and in front of the street. She fears since the first day any uncontrolled movement, emerging from nowhere, far from any organization. In this, the strike this weekend of the SNCF, by its atypical character (it emanates from a collective of controllers independent of the unions), sounds like a serious warning. For Elisabeth Borne, who waited to be at Matignon to face universal suffrage, the moment of truth is approaching, in a time that is not necessarily very reasonable.