Why Élisabeth Borne is now a candidate for the management of Renaissance

Elisabeth Borne announces in “Le Parisien” her candidacy to lead the presidential party. The timing may be surprising since there is no government yet.

While Emmanuel Macron is still looking for a way to form a government, hostilities have begun for the Renaissance congress. Élisabeth Borne is the first to draw. The congress is to be held in the fall to elect its new leadership. No date has been set at this stage, but the statutes provide for it by the end of November. Which is to say an eternity given the uncertainties related to the political period.

“Hallucinating”whisper the executive advisers who find this timing “amazing”a few hours before the meetings of party leaders with the President of the Republic. This is a sign that we are in “full race of little horses”, sigh some in the former majority, and especially that Gabriel Attal does not only have friends. He has never openly said whether or not he would run for the leadership of the party but does not rule it out, even if, according to his entourage, he is first concentrating on his comebacks as resigning Prime Minister and then as group president in the Assembly before thinking of anything else.

But it is to try to block his path that Élisabeth Borne launches herself, by explaining that “It is not customary to be the head of a group and at the same time lead a party”. Support from Elisabeth Borne is formal: “She had to declare herself early because he would have done so as soon as a new Prime Minister was appointed, now Attal will have to explain why she is not the right candidate.”. And her supporters praise the collective side of Elisabeth Borne which Gabriel Attal, however elected in an armchair at the head of the deputies in July for having saved the legislative elections, would miss.

Élisabeth Borne takes the opportunity to show off her good relationship with Gérald Darmanin. A year ago, the Minister of the Interior was a rival of Élisabeth Borne; today he is a rival of Gabriel Attal. That’s the game: alliances and enmities come and go. “Anyone who supports her will just be there to make Attal’s life miserable,” summarizes a Macronist. And Élisabeth Borne launches another warning: “The party is not intended to be a presidential stable.”

Let us recall that this party was built by Emmanuel Macron from scratch to serve his rise to the Élysée. Limited to two terms, it will no longer be of use to Emmanuel Macron. But it can be useful to others, to Gabriel Attal or… to Gérald Darmanin! Because a party is financial means: the sinews of war for a campaign. They are also activists. With her candidacy, Élisabeth Borne seems to want to postpone the moment when the wild beasts will confront each other to storm the Élysée, which, in any case, will not fail to happen.