It will be official on Monday. Élisabeth Borne will have lasted as many days at Matignon as Édith Cresson, the first woman to hold this position, with uncertainty for the rest of her mandate, heckled by pensions, when her predecessor was challenged by the barons of the PS on a background of sexism ambient.
“The method will be that of consultation and dialogue” to seek “the largest majorities”. It is not Elisabeth Borne who utters these words, but the socialist Édith Cresson, appointed Prime Minister “on May 15, 1991.
Because the two women are faced with the same difficulty: the absence of an absolute majority in the National Assembly, even if only a few deputies were missing for Édith Cresson, instead of forty for Élisabeth Borne.
To pass texts, they must convince beyond their camp or, failing that, use 49.3, which allows the adoption of projects without a vote but exposes them to censorship.
Edith Cresson used this constitutional weapon 8 times, Élisabeth Borne 11 times, including to pass the highly contested pension reform, stoking protest in the street and weakening it in Matignon.
On Monday, his rue de Varenne lease will have reached that of Edith Cresson: 10 months and 18 days. A deadline watched closely by the Élysée: considering a replacement before this term would have been “dramatic in the memory that it would leave”, notes an adviser.
Unlike Edith Cresson, attacked in her management, including by the “elephants” of the PS, against a background of “machismo”, Elisabeth Borne did not displease her majority. “Some said ‘she (Élisabeth Borne) is going to be watercressed’. Well, not at all, there is zero question about its dimension to manage function. She is doing the best, “welcomed a relative of Emmanuel Macron in early February.
After 49.3, the former head of government Édouard Philippe, sometimes critical, even comforted her: “I know what it is to be Prime Minister, another can say it too. It’s not easy, I admire it. “If Elisabeth Borne were to leave Matignon, “it will be necessary to judge her on her political action and not on her sex,” insists a majority executive. And “nothing prevents the president from naming a woman after a woman. His first choice [la LR Catherine Vautrin, NDLR] was also a woman”.
“The question is: the president has asked for a new agenda, will she be able to endorse it? adds this source from the presidential camp. Socialist Senator Laurence Rossignol considers that “we have made a lot of progress” since Edith Cresson, because “as Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne can be criticized, but she is respected as a woman”. In this case, she was not compared to her arrival with the Marquise de Pompadour like Édith Cresson, whose appointment by François Mitterrand, to replace Michel Rocard, had been seen, including at the PS, as the act of the prince . The current Prime Minister nevertheless still finds it “super sexist” that some criticize her for not “eating rib steaks while drinking beer”.
When Élisabeth Borne receives Édith Cresson at Matignon on November 8, the two women believe that “things have not evolved enough” on equality and that a woman at Matignon “should no longer be a source of astonishment”. In thirty years, the government has become equal, but only 5 women out of 21 are full ministers.
The fiery Edith Cresson multiplied missteps and reckless remarks. “The Stock Exchange, I don’t care,” she said, also comparing her ministers to “woodlice”. When François Mitterrand separated from him on April 2, 1992, to appoint Pierre Bérégovoy, a former Minister of the Economy respected by the markets and the opposition, “it was positive for the president”, explains Jean Garrigues, author of ‘Élysée against Matignon (Tallandier, 2022).
Because the discontent was aimed at her more than the head of state, who “remained more sheltered”. Today, the anger of the demonstrators “crystallizes on Emmanuel Macron”, so that “the Jupiterian presidency could be worth a greater longevity” to its Prime Minister, advances the historian.
