Game of table tennis. The exchanges have been stormy between Emmanuel Macron and Elisabeth Borne for a few days and the reframing of the Prime Minister by the President of the Republic. During an interview broadcast on Sunday May 28 by radio J, the tenant of Matignon described the National Rally as “heir to Pétain”, adding: “I do not believe at all in the normalization of the National Rally. I think that you shouldn’t trivialize your ideas, your ideas are always the same. So now, the National Rally is putting the formalities on it, but I continue to think that it’s a dangerous ideology”.
Two short sentences that have reacted on the left and on the right of the political spectrum, but also at the top of the state. As franceinfo explained, Emmanuel Macron did not hesitate to comment on Elisabeth Borne’s remarks during the Council of Ministers, declaring: “We must fight the far right but we do not fight it with the words of the 90s. and moral arguments, it doesn’t work anymore”. According to the President of the Republic, we must go “to the field of efficiency” because “the millions of French people who vote for the RN are not all fachos. We will not be able to make millions of French people believe who voted for her that they are fascists”.
A development that sounded like a new call to order from Emmanuel Macron to Elisabeth Borne, while rumors of tension are increasing within the government. A reshuffle, discussed for several months, would it be on the agenda? The Head of State slipped in a new short sentence on Wednesday May 31, heavy with meaning for his Prime Minister.
Is the link definitively broken between the Elysée and Matignon? As he has done in recent months, Emmanuel Macron has chosen to cut short the rumors of tensions and disagreements with Elisabeth Borne. During a press conference in Slovakia, he assured that the Prime Minister had all his “confidence”. “I think that in fact we can no longer beat the far right in our democracies simply with historical and moral arguments”, reaffirmed the president, while wishing “here him [Elisabeth Borne, Ed] to restate all my confidence” . A message that the tenant of Matignon also wanted to convey…
Emmanuel Macron and Elisabeth Borne do they need to reassure the French about their romance? After the Head of State’s latest statements, the Prime Minister also spoke on this subject, in the columns of Ouest-France: “He assured me of his confidence and said that if he had something to say to me, he would have done it one-on-one. Some, obviously, must have misunderstood.”
However, the scenario has been repeated over and over again in recent weeks: one word too many, a spade, then a testimony of confidence. The differences therefore multiply between the Elysée and Matignon, each time making the chair on which Elisabeth Borne is installed a little more unstable. While the start of summer can be synonymous with a reshuffle, is the Prime Minister living her last month at Matignon? Reply very soon.