Former head of government Elisabeth Borne returned this Wednesday to the rumors of which she was the victim concerning her sexual orientation during her time at Matignon.
If this is not a bolt from the blue in the French political landscape, it could be akin to a heavy revelation. Wednesday October 23, former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, in office from May 2022 to January 2024, was the guest of the show C to you as part of the release of his book Twenty months in Matignon. Now a deputy (Together for the Republic) for the 6th constituency of Calvados, she notably returned to the misogyny of which she was a victim when she was head of government.
“I have every reason to believe that my own side started them”
Elisabeth Borne’s lease in Matignon was marked by incessant rumors according to which the 65-year-old woman was homosexual. “As a female Prime Minister it’s atypical, we say to ourselves that we can spice up the character a little more,” regrets the main person concerned. On the set of C to you on France 5, she wanted to make things clear while recalling the absurdity of the situation she had to face: “If I had been homosexual, I would have simply said that I was homosexual. And once you’ve tried to say the first time ‘no, I’m not homosexual, I have a partner’, and you’re told ‘you’re right, it’s your choice not to say it, but it would be so nice if you came out: now you don’t know what to say because if you deny it, we’ll say ‘she’s defending herself, it’s proof that there’s something hidden! ‘, and if you don’t say anything, they say ‘she doesn’t say anything so it must be true'”, she explains.
But then,where could these rumors come from? The former Prime Minister has a little idea, and she did not hesitate to share it publicly on the show this Wednesday: “Rumours that did not start out of nowhere. I have every reason to believe that my own camp started them,” she reveals. Information loaded with meaning, while the elected official is still part of the presidential coalition and sits in the National Assembly. She also regrets that the political sphere is the scene of attacks against women “on things which have little to do with the heart of their functions”, again on France 5.
Candidate for the presidency of the “Renaissance” party
Elisabeth Borne also took the opportunity to send a more general message concerning sexism which she considers “more regulated in the professional world than in politics”. This is evidenced by the proportion of city councilors on French territory: “We passed laws on parity with parity lists for municipal elections, but (…) we have 80% men among the mayors”, says she notice. An observation shared with “many women involved in politics” specifies the Parisian by birth. More recently, she said she was “struck” by her departure from the Matignon hotel after the appointment of Gabriel Attal as Prime Minister. In question, the similarity between the duration of her mandate and that of Edith Cresson, first female head of government: “No one has compared me to my male colleagues, some of whom stayed shorter than me,” she emphasizes. .
From now on, Elisabeth Borne is a candidate for head of the presidential party, which will indicate the name of its next leader on December 7, 2024. The former Prime Minister should be opposed to Gabriel Attal in this internal campaign. If many see it as a losing battle, this could be an opportunity for her to defend her record at Matignon. “It is essential to carry out a project collectively, that it is not an individual adventure,” she declared Wednesday morning on France Inter. It’s hard not to see this as a slight dig at his rival. Hostilities are launched.