49.3, a new resistance test for Borne – France

Elisabeth Borne assures her: she does not make this 49.3, drawn on her emblematic pension reform, “a personal issue”. But the chaotic sequence weakens her in her post as head of government and again questions her resilience.

“Persistent and resilient”. It is the species of tree, a holm oak, that the Prime Minister planted in the gardens of Matignon, in her image. A way also to color his lease, started in a stormy way for the one who was not the first choice of the President for this post, and who must overcome a relative majority, resulting from failed legislative elections.

Reputed to be “hardworking” or even “a little abrupt”, will this super techno polytechnician also be able to bounce back after this decision of 49.3 which she did not support at the start and which remobilized opponents of her reform in the street?

Pending the probable rejection of the motions of censure, this Monday, the former prefect several times minister, who has dedicated his life to the service of the State, seems ready to leave his post. An ideal sacrifice than that of a Prime Minister whose popularity vegetates below that of the President, without real political significance.

“She said to the President: ‘I think this reform is useful, necessary. It’s me the fuse, it’s up to me to assume “”, testifies an adviser to Emmanuel Macron.

” Spring “

Some saw her let her emotion show in front of the majority deputies on Thursday, after being considerably heckled in the Assembly.

But “the Prime Minister is not crying”, she is “very solid”, assured, Friday, the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt. She “has the support of the majority and the confidence of the President”.

“If the motion of censure is rejected, the reform will be adopted and it will not have lost the battle. »

By using a reputedly brutal constitutional tool, it nevertheless contradicts its method based on consultation.

Elisabeth Borne “reasoned like someone rational, but the LR group is not the most rational there is”, nuances a source within the executive.

“She is weakened by 49.3 because her strategy vis-à-vis the unions and LR is defeated, but we cannot overwhelm her with everything”, underlines another adviser. “If the motion of censure is rejected, the reform will be adopted and it will not have lost the battle”.

Elisabeth Borne “has a lot of spring”. “It’s not an iron bar. She knows how to be but she is not just that, ”says a minister.

Had the former Minister of Transport, Ecology and Labor not been able to seduce the majority during her general policy statement when she smiled mischievously and imperturbably in the face of the vociferations of the opposition?

Modest

Thursday, she also remained stoic when she announced, raising her voice all the same, the use of 49.3 under the boos of the left and the beats of the desk of the extreme right.

Second woman to occupy this post since the socialist Édith Cresson (1991-1992), she is now “respected as a woman”, even if, “as Prime Minister, she can be criticized”, greets the socialist senator Laurence Rossignol .

It remains to be seen whether the President can separate from her before the symbolic expiry of ten months and 18 days of the mandate of Edith Cresson, that is to say on April 3.

Emmanuel Macron’s entourage hastened to salute, Thursday, the posture of “great disinterestedness” of Elisabeth Borne, to whom the head of state, also anxious to protect himself, left the piloting of this reform flammable.

“A woman of confidence, more than confidence,” said the President of her when he presented her with the insignia of Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit at the end of December.

A childhood trauma

Unknown to the general public, Elisabeth Borne, born Bornstein, 61, divorced and mother of a boy, is very modest about her private life, marked by another, more personal resilience. The one that followed the suicide, when she was eleven, of a father who had never recovered from deportation.

After this trauma, this engineer does not hide having taken refuge in math, which has become for her “something quite reassuring, quite rational”.

And never fails in his travels to salute the strength and courage here of women suffering from violence, there of Françoise Rudetzki, spokesperson for the victims of terrorism. Enduring journeys, like his.