Recently there was Élisabeth Borne a major interview with the France 2 broadcaster. In the opening credits, French people grumbled on the street about the pension reform, there was talk of a “pension for the dead” and a “complete blockade of the country”. Including dramatic music. The whole thing looked like the trailer for a Netflix series with endless seasons. In one of the leading roles: the French Prime Minister.
Of course, pension reform is President Emmanuel Macron’s big and delicate project. But the head of government, Elisabeth Borne, has to implement it. During the election campaign, Macron promised to reform the French pension system and raise the legal retirement age. The concrete plans, the gradual increase from 62 to 64 years and the faster increase in the contribution period to 43 years, were presented by his prime minister at the beginning of January.
When the largest protest marches for a long time swept through the streets of France in recent weeks, Macron signed a friendship agreement in Spain and received the Ukrainian speaker of parliament. The one defending the reform in parliament and on the television plateaus is Elisabeth Borne.
Borne is considered “the president’s shield”
This division has a long tradition in France. As the most powerful person in the political system, the President is responsible for the broad lines and announcements; execution is the task of the Prime Minister and the cabinet. In 1995, Prime Minister Alain Juppé failed in an attempt to abolish the special regulations of the French pension system. In 2010, Labor Minister Éric Woerth and Prime Minister François Fillon were responsible for pushing through the raising of the retirement age from 60 to 62, amid massive popular opposition.
As sober as Élisabeth Borne is sitting on the stool at France 2 in her baby-blue blazer, she has been trying to moderate the reform so far. The sentences that she says on the show have come from her again and again in recent weeks: “I hear the worries and fears”, “It’s a collective effort”, “It’s not easy, but necessary”.
Élisabeth Borne is considered a loyal technocrat. Before becoming prime minister last year, she was minister under Macron for five years, first for transport, then for the environment, then for jobs. Borne studied engineering and managed the Paris public transport company for several years. In the 1990s she advised the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
Now she of all people, a politician who is actually close to the left, has to push through Macron’s liberal pension reform. In recent months, Borne has been responsible for talks with the opposition parties and the unions. She repeatedly emphasized the importance of “concertation”, i.e. voting.
Many attribute the fact that the government has moved towards the opposition and plans to retire at 64 instead of 65 to the prime minister’s influence. Macron had repeatedly insisted on 65 years in the past. “Borne is the President’s shield”, wrote the newspaper a few weeks ago Le Monde“although it does help that she has a stronger penchant for negotiation.”
In the worst case, there could even be a vote of no confidence
Recently, the prime minister no longer seemed so sure whether she wanted to take a hard line or make concessions. At the end of January she said on French radio, the retirement age of 64 is “no longer negotiable”. In the past week she said in an interview with the newspaper Journal de Dimanche“we will move”, and promised that, contrary to what was previously planned, those who started working between the ages of 20 and 21 should also be allowed to retire at the age of 63 in the future.
During a demonstration in Paris against the pension reform.
(Photo: Samuel Boivin/Imago)
In addition to President Macron, the prime minister has also become a target of the protests on the streets. “Borne to die”, “Borne to be a lie”, “Borne out” is written on the demonstrators’ placards. A protest car in Marseille last weekend caused a stir with a rubber doll version of the prime minister hanging over a coffin. “If you don’t want your head on a doll like that, you don’t do politics like that,” a trade unionist from the radical CGT defended the action.
The prime minister’s popularity ratings have continued to fall over the past few weeks, as indicated at the beginning of February in a survey by the Elabe Institute just 23 percent of those surveyed said they trusted Élisabeth Borne. With President Macron it was 30 percent.
But Borne’s job is not only thankless because the pension reform is unpopular with the population. But also because of the unfavorable political constellation. Since the parliamentary elections last year, her government no longer has an absolute majority in the National Assembly. In order to push through the reform, she is therefore dependent on the votes of the conservative Republicans. And despite several concessions, they are still not considered safe. If the government does not actually get a majority in the end, Élisabeth Borne will have to make herself even less popular and pull the controversial constitutional article 49.3. This makes it possible to forward a bill directly to the Senate without a vote in Parliament.
In the worst case, the opposition could then overthrow the prime minister and her government with a vote of no confidence. That is considered unlikely. Nevertheless, Macron has threatened in the past that in this case he will dissolve the National Assembly and call new parliamentary elections.