ELISABETH BORNE PRIME MINISTER

A CHOICE OF REASON

The Head of State indeed wanted a profile "attached to the social question, the environmental question and the productive question". He also wanted to entrust the reins of government to a woman, thirty years after Edith Cresson, the only woman to have held the position in France until then. Minister since 2017 of the Philippe and Castex governments, this “techno” had been cited for several weeks to enter Matignon. Woman, on the left and with an environmental streak, the former boss of the RATP, aged 61, ticked many boxes wanted by Emmanuel Macron

"I think it's a very good choice, because she's a remarkable person, not because she's a woman," immediately reacted her distant predecessor on BFM. “She is sufficiently competent and experienced, and in addition, she is courageous, which is a very necessary virtue in this function”.

A former student of the Ecole Polytechnique (class of 1981), an engineer with a degree from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Elisabeth Borne did not go through the ENA, the classic course for great servants of the State. She began her career in 1987 at the Ministry of Equipment, before joining various ministerial cabinets and being appointed prefect of Vienne and the Poitou-Charentes region in February 2013 – she is the first woman to hold this position. Her career in the senior public service earned her this image of "good technician", combining discretion and loyalty to the president.

If Elisabeth Borne cut her teeth in the ministerial mysteries, the polytechnician also rubs shoulders with the business world. In 2002, she was director of strategy for SNCF before joining Eiffage in 2007. But she is best known for her time at RATP, which she headed between 2015 and 2017.

She led two major reforms of the quinquennium

Elisabeth Borne joined the government in May 2017 as Minister in charge of Transport under the leadership of Nicolas Hulot, Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition. She impresses in this position by leading one of the first projects of the five-year term, the thorny reform of the SNCF.

With the arrival of Jean Castex at the head of the government, she changed her portfolio to that of the Minister of Labour, Employment and Integration. She is notably responsible for two major reforms, that of pensions and that of unemployment insurance. If the first does not succeed, the second comes into force in December 2021.

"Minister of impossible reforms made possible", according to the punchline of former Minister Castaner, the new tenant of Matignon will now have to demonstrate her ability to lead a government team.