French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday named French Minister of Labor, Employment and Integration Elisabeth Borne as prime minister to lead his reform plans, the first woman to head the French government in more than 30 years.
Jean Castex earlier handed his resignation as prime minister to the president, part of a widely expected reshuffle to make way for a new government in the wake of Macron’s re-election last month.
The previous female prime minister, Edith Cresson, headed the Cabinet from May 1991 to April 1992 under then-French president Francois Mitterrand.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Ending weeks of speculation, the Elysee confirmed Borne’s nomination in a statement and she then headed to the Matignon residence in Paris for the handover with Castex.
The departure of Castex, who was a surprise choice for the role in 2020, enables Macron to reshape the Cabinet ahead of parliamentary polls scheduled for next month.
The new government under Borne is expected to be announced in the next few days.
Macron will need a legislative majority to push through his domestic agenda following his re-election, with a new alliance and other opposition parties threatening to block his program.
Speculation has been rife in the past few weeks about Castex’s replacement, with Macron indicating he wanted a woman with left-wing and environmental credentials.
Those criteria reflect his desire to focus on schools and health in the early part of his second term, as well as climate change affairs, which he has promised to prioritize.
Borne, 61, is seen as an able technocrat who can negotiate prudently with unions as the president embarks on a new package of social reforms that include a rise in the retirement age, which risks sparking protests.
A French presidential official, who asked not to be named, described Borne as a woman of “conviction, action and realization,” noting her “capacity to carry out reforms.”
“It was high time there was another woman,” Cresson, who knows Borne personally, told BFM-TV.
“She is a remarkable person, with great experience in the public and private sectors,” Cresson said.
“She’s a very good choice because she’s a remarkable person, not because she’s a woman,” she added.
She expressed amazement that it had taken France — which has never had a female head of state — so long to have another woman as prime minister.
“France is very behind — not the French population, but the political class,” Cresson said.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers on Monday said that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. “As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,” the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast might be moot
RSS