Élisabeth Borne will have won the trial which opposed her to the journalist Bérengère Bonte. The Prime Minister succeeded in having a controversial passage deleted from a biography devoted to her. She accused the writer of infringing on her privacy, a charge confirmed by the verdict handed down by the Nanterre court this Friday, June 30.
The Nanterre court ruled that this passage was “seriously prejudicial to respect for the right to privacy” of the Prime Minister and was “only intended to arouse public curiosity about her alleged sexual orientation”. .
The book in question is La Secrète, by journalist Bérengère Bonte, published on May 4 by L’Archipel. They will have to pay Ms. Borne 1 euro in damages and 2,000 euros in legal costs. Elisabeth Borne had taken the publisher to court to remove several passages from this book in the event of reprinting and because of invasions of her privacy.
The Prime Minister “does not want to submit to the tyranny of transparency, it is consistent with what she has always been, a discreet woman”, her lawyer pleaded at the end of May. The court did not accede to all of his requests. He explained in Friday’s judgment that the deletion of certain other passages “would constitute a disproportionate restriction on freedom of expression”. Are concerned remarks on a supposed “anorexia” of Ms. Borne between 2012 and 2015.
The publishing house announced in a press release that it wanted to appeal. “This decision is only one step in a fight for the freedom to investigate which must be that of journalists,” she said. Copies of the book containing the offending passage remain in bookstores “until the stock is exhausted”, recalled the publisher.
