• Elisabeth Borne delivered her general policy statement this Wednesday to the National Assembly.

  • “I know how much we are expected.

    I am not a woman to hide, neither in the face of challenges, nor in front of debates, ”she said.

  • Long-awaited, the Prime Minister did not reserve any surprises, but showed herself to be solid in the face of criticism from the opposition.

In the National Assembly,

She left the Matignon hotel around 2:40 p.m., her face calm, under the insistent summer sun.

Pink jacket on the shoulders, Elisabeth Borne walks up the 800 meters of the rue de Varenne, which takes her to the National Assembly.

Facing the cameras, the Prime Minister says she is “serene and concentrated”, even allowing herself to joke with the handful of ministers who escort her, Gérald Darmanin, Olivier Véran, or even the ghost Marlène Schiappa.

An almost normal day, therefore, the air of nothing, despite the baptism of fire to come.

Because the head of government is firmly expected in the Hemicycle, where she must deliver her long-awaited general policy statement.

The debates promise to be heated.

Moreover, the deputies of Nupes did not wait to hear it to table a motion of censure and hope to bring down his government.

“I am not a woman to hide, neither in the face of challenges nor in front of debates”

“In speaking to you, I am speaking to France”.

It's 3 p.m.

Within the Palais-Bourbon, the agitation gave way to a questioning silence.

How will the Prime Minister, sometimes considered too techno even in her own ranks, cope with such broad opposition?

Very quickly, the first boos rain down.

Very quickly, Elisabeth Borne shows that she is not the type to let herself be destabilized.

“I know how much we are expected.

I am not a woman to hide, neither in the face of challenges, nor in front of debates, ”she says.

“Except for the vote of confidence!

“, swings the boss of the group La France insoumise, Mathilde Panot.

In the absence of an absolute majority, the Prime Minister had indicated that she would not engage her responsibility by a vote at the end of the debates.

Defending the results of Emmanuel Macron's first five-year term, the former Minister of Labor also claims to have heard "the message" from voters in the legislative elections.

“By the result of the ballot boxes, they ask us to act and to act differently”, she says.

“A relative majority is not and will not be the synonym of relative action, it will not be the sign of impotence […] Compromise is not about compromising oneself, it is about accepting each of take a step towards the other.

Building together does not mean giving up our identity”.

On the right, we kindly make fun of these few clichés.

"And water, it's wet!"

“, Ironically an LR deputy.

“I may not correspond to the composite portrait that some were expecting”

But it is from the side of the rebellious that almost all the boos come.

Alexis Corbière and François Ruffin leave little respite to Elisabeth Borne.

She doesn't let anything show through, regularly fixes her opponents with a slight smile, as if in defiance.

And continues, tirelessly.

“I may not correspond to the composite portrait that some expected.

This is good, the situation is unprecedented.

I don't have the complex of the providential woman", she laughs, "I was an engineer, businesswoman, prefect, minister... My journey has followed only one common thread: to serve ".

Immediately countering criticism of her lack of emphasis on the microphone, she adds: "I am not a woman of big phrases and small words […] I believe in three things: listening, doing and results ".

On the merits, the head of government ticks the expected boxes: purchasing power, ecology, work, security, energy, without ever clarifying the vagueness of Emmanuel Macron's project.

She also calls on the country to return to the "path of balance" in public finances, and is once again heckled when she mentions (very briefly) the explosive pension reform.

“Yes, we will have to work gradually a little longer”, she assures, triggering a bronca on the left.

She turns this time to Yaël Braun-Pivet, so that the President of the National Assembly calls for calm.

A speech without surprise

The duel with the rebels is not over.

The latter call him once again for a vote of confidence, by slamming their tablet.

The Prime Minister glares at their ranks and replies.

“The time is not to count us, but to talk to us.

Trust cannot be decreed a priori, it will be forged text after text.

Because we will work in good intelligence, as the French ask us to do”.

Elisabeth Borne then talks about her personal story.

“If I am here in front of you, Prime Minister of France, I owe it to the Republic.

It was she who held out her hand to me by making me a pupil of the Nation, when I was this child whose father had never really returned from the camps, ”she confides, very moved, referring to the suicide of her father, deported when she was 11 years old.

His speech, lasting around an hour and a half, delivered no surprises.

Elisabeth Borne is still not an outstanding tribune.

But she has shown that she will not flinch in the face of criticism.

As a foretaste of the many debates to come in the Hemicycle.

LIVE: At the Assembly, Elisabeth Borne calls for "building together" compromises, the oppositions say their "mistrust"...

Policy

EDF, "climate emergency", inflation and "compromise"... The essence of Elisabeth Borne's general policy speech

  • Elisabeth Borne

  • Government

  • National Assembly

  • Vote of confidence

  • Deputy