Analysis
France: the left awaits the new Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne at the turn
Élisabeth Borne when taking office as Prime Minister at Matignon on May 16, 2022 in Paris.
AP - Christophe Ena
Text by: Valérie Gas Follow
3 mins
The storytelling around the appointment of Elisabeth Borne highlights her quality as a “leftist” woman.
A signal intended to reassure the histories of En Marche who are suspicious of the right-wing of the majority, but also the voters of the moderate left who had heard Emmanuel Macron's message in the interval between the two rounds.
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Barely named, Elisabeth Borne had to face a barrage of fire from the left opposition.
And for good reason: unlike her predecessors, Édouard Philippe and Jean Castex,
the new Prime Minister
is not appointed to make the beam work on the right, but to retain voters on the left after a presidential election where some had chosen Emmanuel Macron only. not to vote for Marine Le Pen.
“
Ms. Borne would be a woman of the left
”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon made no mistake about it and reacted very quickly to the announcement of the appointment of Elisabeth Borne.
All in iron, he declared: "
His appointment begins from the first moments with an attempt at deception, Ms. Borne would be a woman of the left
".
No question of acknowledging any "social" fiber manifested during a career as an adviser in socialist governments to Lionel Jospin and Ségolène Royal in particular.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon only wants to retain the profile of a good student of a "techno" under the orders of Emmanuel Macron to pass in the previous five-year term reforms deemed "right-wing" in particular that of the SNCF and unemployment insurance or now, the pension reform which should make it possible to push back the legal retirement age to 65, as announced by Emmanuel Macron during the presidential campaign.
The tone is the same on the side of the ecologists.
Julien Bayou felt that "
Élisabeth Borne's record in social matters
is the record of a right-wing woman
".
It was enough to delight the members of the majority.
The deputy of Vienne Sacha Houlié, for example, who considered that the "
impoliteness and indelicacy expressed by the leaders of the left, including the Insoumis in chief, made it possible to realize that the appointment of Élisabeth Borne was successful and to how much she bothered them
.
A way of endorsing the Head of State's strategy for the legislative campaign that the appointment of the new Prime Minister has really launched.
The challenge of the legislative
A campaign in which Emmanuel Macron targeted Jean-Luc Mélenchon as the main adversary.
During a training seminar for candidates invested by the majority, the President of the Republic affirmed that the “
third round
” did not exist, a direct allusion to the argument of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Moreover, the day after her appointment to Matignon, Elisabeth Borne went to the Assembly to mobilize the troops for the legislative elections.
Legislative elections during which she will try to obtain her first elective mandate in Calvados.
One month before the election deadline and in the midst of
the launch of the New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes)
, the left-wing opposition is playing big.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon made a bet: to bring together the left, a
sine qua non
condition to be able to claim to impose his appointment at Matignon on Emmanuel Macron, if the French give him a majority in June.
There is no question of letting too many moderate left voters succumb to the sirens of a government embodied by Elisabeth Borne.
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Emmanuel Macron
Elisabeth Borne
French legislative 2022
French politics