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POLITICS

PROFILE: Elisabeth Borne – the resilient technocrat turned French PM

France's Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who has pushed through a controversial pensions overhaul without a parliament vote, is an experienced technocrat known for her resilience.

PROFILE: Elisabeth Borne - the resilient technocrat turned French PM
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne attends the 4th meeting with the youth in Matignon (Rencontres de la jeunesse de Matignon). Photo: Raphael Lafargue /POOL/AFP

The 61-year-old engineer in May last year became the first woman to head a French government in three decades. When she took office, she dedicated the moment to “all the little girls”.

“Follow your dreams, nothing must slow the fight for women’s place in our society,” she said.

Borne had proven her loyalty to President Emmanuel Macron during his first term, serving as transport, environment and finally labour minister from 2020.

During Macron’s second and last stint in office, she has as premier staunchly defended his flagship pensions reform to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

She has championed the bill both in parliament and several television interviews, while the centrist president has made very few public comments on the topic.

On Thursday, she stoically withstood boos and jeers in parliament as she deployed a controversial executive power to force through the legislation without a vote in the hung lower house.

She invoked article 49.3 of the constitution, despite previously saying she did not want to use it and after two months of nationwide demonstrations protesting against the reform.

‘The fuse’

An adviser to the president said Borne had been willing to take the fall for the deeply unpopular move.

“I think this reform is useful, necessary. I’m the fuse. It’s up to me to bear it,” he quoted her as telling the president before she appeared in front of lawmakers.

But hours later, in an interview with the TF1 broadcaster, she evaded a question about whether she was ready to sacrifice herself for the pensions overhaul.

“This is not a personal issue,” she said. “The issue here is to ensure the future of our pensions system.”

Thursday was the eleventh time Borne has invoked article 49.3 to ram through a bill since becoming head of government.

That puts her second in the ranking of prime ministers who have most used the measure, behind Michel Rocard who from 1988 to 1991 rolled it out 28 times.

Opposition lawmakers have filed for a vote of no confidence in the government next week, which they hope will bring down Borne and repeal the pensions bill.

But many believe she will survive it thanks to backing from conservative Republican lawmakers.

‘Weakened’

“She has been weakened by the use of article 49.3,” said another adviser to the president. But “if the no-confidence motion is rejected, the reform will be adopted and she won’t have lost the battle,” they said.

A minister, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Borne was not all “iron rod”. They said she had “a lot of spring” in her.

France’s first female prime minister Edith Cresson lasted under 11 months in the early 1990s, during which time she endured sexism.

Socialist senator Laurence Rossignol said Borne was different. “She is respected as a woman,” Rossignol said, but added that “as prime minister, she can be critcised”.

France’s second-ever female prime minister was born in Paris and studied at the elite Ecole Polytechnique.

Little is known about her private life, apart from that she was born to a mother with very little income and a father who took his own life when she was just 11 years old.

Her Jewish father had been deported to Auschwitz during World War II and survived the Nazi death camp, but had never fully recovered, she has said.

A lover of maths, Borne has said she finds in numbers “something quite reassuring, quite rational”.

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POLITICS

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

President Emmanuel Macron warned that the policies of his far-right and hard-left opponents could lead to ‘civil war’, as France prepared for its most divisive election in decades.

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

French politics were plunged into turmoil when Macron called snap legislative elections after his centrist party was trounced by the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in a European vote earlier this month.

Weekend polls suggested the RN would win 35-36 percent in the first round on Sunday, ahead of a left-wing alliance on 27-29.5 percent and Macron’s centrists in third on 19.5-22 percent.

A second round of voting will follow on July 7th in constituencies where no candidate takes more than 50 percent in the first round.

Speaking on the podcast Generation Do It Yourself, Macron, 46, denounced both the RN as well as the hard-left France Unbowed party.

He said the far-right “divides and pushes towards civil war”, while the hard-left La France Insoumise, which is part of the Nouveau Front Populaire alliance, proposes “a form of communitarianism”, adding that “civil war follows on from that, too”.

Reacting to Macron’s comments, far-right leader Jordan Bardella told French news outlet M6: “A President of the Republic should not say that. I want to re-establish security for all French people.”

Bardella, the RN’s 28-year-old president, earlier Monday said his party was ready to govern as he pledged to curb immigration and tackle cost-of-living issues.

“In three words: we are ready,” Bardella told a news conference as he unveiled the RN’s programme.

READ ALSO What would a far-right prime minister mean for foreigners in France?

Bardella has urged voters to give the eurosceptic party an outright majority to allow it to implement its anti-immigration, law-and-order programme.

“Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country,” he said, vowing to boost purchasing power, “restore order” and change the law to make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

He reiterated plans to tighten borders and make it harder for children born in France to foreign parents to gain citizenship.

Bardella added that the RN would focus on “realistic” measures to curb inflation, primarily by cutting energy taxes.

He also promised a disciplinary ‘big bang’ in schools, including a ban on mobile phones and trialling the introduction of school uniforms, a proposal previously put forward by Macron.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of Macron’s Renaissance party poured scorn on the RN’s economic programme, telling Europe 1 radio the country was “headed straight for disaster” in the event of an RN victory.

On Tuesday, Attal will go head-to-head with Bardella and the leftist Manuel Bompard in a TV debate.

On foreign policy, Bardella said the RN opposed sending French troops and long-range missiles to Ukraine – as mooted by Macron – but would continue to provide logistical and material support.

He added that his party, which had close ties to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would be “extremely vigilant” in the face of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in French affairs.

Macron insisted that France would continue to support Ukraine over the long term as he met with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

“We will continue to mobilise to respond to Ukraine’s immediate needs,” he said alongside Stoltenberg at the Elysee Palace.

The election is shaping up as a showdown between the RN and the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire, which is dominated by the hard-left La France Insoumise.

Bardella claimed the RN, which mainstream parties have in the past united to block, was now the “patriotic and republican” choice faced with what he alleged was the anti-Semitism of Mélenchon’s party.

La France Insoumise, which opposes Israel’s war in Gaza and refused to label the October 7th Hamas attacks as ‘terrorism’, denies the charges of anti-Semitism.

In calling an election in just three weeks Macron hoped to trip up his opponents and catch them unprepared.

But analysts have warned the move could backfire if the deeply unpopular president is forced to share power with a prime minister from an opposing party.

RN powerhouse Marine Le Pen, who is bidding to succeed Macron as president, has called on him to step aside if he loses control of parliament.

Macron has insisted he will not resign before the end of his second term in 2027 but has vowed to heed voters’ concerns.

Speaking on Monday, Macron once again defended his choice to call snap elections.

“It’s very hard. I’m aware of it, and a lot of people are angry with me,” he said on the podcast. “But I did it because there is nothing greater and fairer in a democracy than trust in the people.”

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