Emmanuel Macron elevated his former prime minister Elisabeth Borne to the rank of Commander of the Legion of Honor on Monday, November 25, under the glass roof of the Winter Garden at the Elysée. A ceremony “very simple, like a civil funeral”a guest commented caustically at the exit.
The opportunity for the Head of State, who has not always spared his Prime Minister, to deliver a speech “sensitive, quite touching, quite gentle”according to a witness, in homage to the one who first had to face the upheavals of a National Assembly without an absolute majority, and who now sits as a simple deputy.
Surrounded by her mother, her son, her daughter-in-law and her partner, Elisabeth Borne, who since January has turned the page on her brutal ousting from Matignon, was able to savor the president's strong praise. Emmanuel Macron highlighted the “modesty” and the “sense of responsibility” of the polytechnician. He also paid tribute to her action over the past seven years, from the Ministry of Transport, where she led the reform of the SNCF, and at the head of government, where she pushed through, thanks to 49.3, the very controversial pension reform. and the thorny “immigration” law.
A woman who “is not afraid to take on challenges”
In front of around thirty guests, including the Minister of Labor Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet, former ministers Clément Beaune, Aurore Bergé, Julien Denormandie, Olivier Dussopt, Stanislas Guerini, Olivia Grégoire , Jean-Yves Le Drian, Jacques Mézard, Florence Parly, the secretary general of the Elysée Alexis Kohler, and even the recipient's former chief of staff, Aurélien Rousseau, now a socialist deputy, Emmanuel Macron once again praised « l’engagement » and the ” loyalty “ of a woman who “not afraid to take on challenges”, who has always had “the concern to preserve the unity of the majority”and of which he “measures even more than yesterday” the qualities.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Elisabeth Borne delivers her first lessons about her months at Matignon in front of students
Read later
The day after the unsurprising and inglorious election of Gabriel Attal at the head of Renaissance, Elisabeth Borne having finally given up on challenging him, Emmanuel Macron praised the withdrawal of the elected official from Calvados, who “ favored the collective reflex in the face of individual temptation”.
As two years ago, when he presented her with the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit, Emmanuel Macron recalled the painful family history of Elisabeth Borne, whose father, Joseph Bornstein, of Jewish origin Russian deported to Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the Second World War, ended her life when she was 11 years old. “From Borne, this nom de guerre whispered in the shadow of the Second World War, the resistance name of your father, you have made a name that resonates in the highest circles of the Republic as in the streets of Normandy, and which always resonates with the echoes of righteousness and commitment”he greeted.
You have 26.33% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
