Parisian transport and its renovation for the Olympic Games are the subject of a skirmish between the mayor of the capital and the minister in charge of the subject. Anne Hidalgo wrote to Élisabeth Borne on Friday to complain about the “unworthy” comments made by Clément Beaune, according to whom the mayor of Paris “spits on our country” when she says that transport “will not be ready” for the Olympic Games.
“Such comments are unworthy of a minister of the Republic. These are the words used by the far right,” she wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister sent to AFP. Clément Beaune said “our country” because he considers “that France, undoubtedly because of my origins, would not be my country”, says Anne Hidalgo, who has dual Franco-Spanish nationality.
Comments deemed “serious”
In the name of “the values that we share”, the mayor asks the head of government to take “the necessary measures” with regard to the “minister for Transport” whom she does not name. Friday morning during a press conference dedicated to the municipal vote on SUV parking rates, Anne Hidalgo had already denounced the “serious, heavy, hurtful” comments of Clément Beaune.
The two women know each other well, Élisabeth Borne having been the general director of town planning at the town hall when Anne Hidalgo was the deputy to this delegation of her predecessor Bertrand Delanoë.