As protests spread across France, the focus is on French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne who said on Friday that the government may consider “all options” to restore normalcy. This included a declaration of emergency after 17-year-old Nahel M was shot dead in police firing which resulted in subsequent protests and riots.
A state of emergency would entail giving authorities more powers to announce local curfews, ban protests, and give police freedom to restrain rioters and violent protesters.
Who is Élisabeth Borne
Élisabeth Borne is a French politician and the Prime Minister of France since May 2022. She is a member of President Emmanuel Macron’s party Renaissance.
Elisabeth Borne was born on April 18 1961 in Paris. Her mother was French named Marguerite Lecèsne, who was a pharmacist. Her father, Joseph Bornstein, son of Zelig Bornstein from Łuków (formerly Congress Poland). He fled to France at the outset of the Second World War and was active in the French Resistance.
Borne’s mother ran a pharmaceutical laboratory after the war.Her father ran a rubber products factory but suffered from trauma and severe depression. He committed suicide when she was 11 years old. After his death, Borne was awarded “Ward of the Nation” education benefits which the state granted to minors who were orphaned as a result of the war or had a parent who had died in exceptional circumstances.
Élisabeth Borne is a civil engineer, government official, and manager of state enterprises in the transport and construction sectors, Borne earlier also served as minister of transport (2017–2019) and minister of ecology (2019–2020). She was then minister of labour, employment, and integration in the Castex government from 2020 to 2022. On 16 May 2022, President Macron appointed her as the prime minister after Castex’s resignation, as it is the ceremony following the presidential elections in France. Borne is the second woman to hold the position after Édith Cresson, who served from 1991 to 1992.