French PM Élisabeth Borne quits as Macron seeks
boost before EU elections
Second female prime minister of Fifth Republic resigns
after days of speculation about reshuffle, with Le Pen party ahead in polls
Kim
Willsher in Paris
Mon 8 Jan
2024 19.01 CET
France’s
prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, has resigned after days of increasingly
feverish speculation about an imminent government reshuffle.
The
president, Emmanuel Macron, who is seeking to give a new impetus to his second
mandate before European parliament elections and the Paris Olympics this
summer, thanked Borne for her “exemplary work in the service of the nation”.
“You have
put our project into effect with the courage, engagement and the determination
of a stateswoman,” Macron tweeted.
In her
resignation letter, Borne said it was “more necessary than ever to continue the
reforms” being pursued by the government.
“I wanted
to tell you how passionate I have been about this mission,” she wrote, adding
that she was “guided by the constant concern, which we share, to achieve rapid
and tangible results for our fellow citizens”.
However,
she made it clear the decision to go had not been not hers and that she had
taken note of the president’s wish to appoint a new prime minister.
Under the
French system, the president appoints the prime minister but cannot dismiss
them from the post. Instead, they must ask for their resignation.
The
reshuffle comes five months before the European parliament elections, with
Eurosceptics expected to make record gains at a time of widespread public
discontent over surging living costs and the failure of European governments to
curb immigration.
Opinion
polls show Macron’s party trailing that of the far-right leader Marine Le Pen
byeight to 10 points before the June vote.
Borne, 62,
was appointed prime minister in May 2022, shortly after Macron was re-elected
to the Élysée. She was the second female prime minister since the Fifth
Republic began in 1958. Weeks later the government lost its absolute majority
in the Assemblée Nationale in a general election.
It meant
Borne, as head of a minority government, was forced to push contested
legislation promised in Macron’s presidential campaign, including an overhaul
of the pension system, through parliament often with recourse to a
controversial constitutional clause, the 49:3, that avoided a vote on the
issues. Borne’s government used the clause 23 times.
A fiercely
contested immigration bill was passed after Borne sought a compromise with the
rightwing Républicains party that pushed the legislation further to the right
than the government had wished.
Borne, who
described herself as a “woman of the left”, found herself under fire from
opposite sides of the political spectrum.
On Monday,
Cyrielle Chatelain, the president of the Ecologist group of MPs, suggested
Borne had been a puppet prime minister.
“She has
served Emmanuel Macron to the point of losing herself. She wanted to serve the
state. Instead, she will have served a president with no direction, no values,
who has only one obsession: destroying our social model,” Chatelain tweeted.
Borne, a
graduate of the elite grandes écoles, including École Polytechnique, served as
transport minister, ecological transition minister and employment minister
before being named as prime minister.
At the time
of her resignation, no successor had been named and the Élysée confirmed that
Borne, along with other members of the government, would continue the work on
“current issues until the nomination of a new government”.
Three names
were being put forward in the French media as likely successors: Gabriel Attal,
the education minister, who if appointed at the age of 34 would be France’s
youngest and first openly gay prime minister; Sébastien Lecornu, the armed
forces minister; and Julien Denormandie, the former agriculture minister who
announced he was leaving politics after he was not appointed prime minister
after the 2022 presidential election.
Earlier in
the day Macron appeared in fighting form as he urged French people to get out
and exercise daily as the country prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic
Games.
In a video
posted on X Macron appeared in front of a punch bag with a pair of boxing
gloves slung over his shoulder, suggesting people should work out for 30
minutes every day “and longer if you can”.
“In 200
days it starts. Sport is a great national cause this year,” Macron, 46, said.
Macron regularly boxes in a gym, including with his presidential bodyguards,
and has been photographed, in official shirt and tie, sparring with amateur
boxers.
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