The secretary general of the CFDT had criticized the Prime Minister for a lack of “empathy” after her appearance on France 2. He clarified his point this Sunday.
A new, more personal front has opened up in the social conflict that has been brewing in France for several weeks. This Sunday, the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, however wanted to calm things down.I fundamentally disagree, but I have immense respect for Élisabeth Borne“, he repeated twice during an interview on France Inter. A way for the union leader, who defends himself from engaging in a political fight against Emmanuel Macron, to put the debate back on the ground of pension reform, rather than on the personality of the Prime Minister.
Thursday evening, Laurent Berger was brought to react live on France 2 immediately after the intervention of Élisabeth Borne. He then lamentednot (have) heard of work“Listening to the Prime Minister, before deciding:”it’s work that should have been talked about this evening to show a minimum of empathy“. The phrase was heard as an attack ad hominem, which Laurent Berger defended himself on Sunday. “I was talking about these wordshe said. There is no personal attack, it’s not my way.»
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Whatever the number 1 of the CFDT says, Elisabeth Borne did not taste her outing on Thursday evening. Questioned the next day, Friday afternoon, by our colleagues from JDDthe Prime Minister judged these remarks “hurtful“. “It’s the opposite of who I am and what I wear“, she defended. She takes a very severe look at Laurent Berger’s remarks, which she qualifies, for her part, as “personal attack“.
This is not the first time that the personality of Elisabeth Borne invites itself into the public debate. This week, the communist leader Fabien Roussel in a slip compared the Prime Minister to Margaret Thatcher, nicknamed “Iron Woman“. Marine Le Pen went there much more frankly in reaction to the appointment of Elisabeth Borne as head of government last May. “Rather than responding to a need for closeness with the French, for warmth, he chooses exactly the opposite, he chooses a technocrat, cold, brutal“, had asserted the finalist of the presidential election.