Elisabeth Borne left the Elysée Palace by a discreet door – the one dedicated to secret meetings – which allowed her to slip through the presidential gardens, avoiding the onslaught of the press. A little after 4 pm on Monday, January 8, the prime minister tendered her resignation – with some emotion – to President Emmanuel Macron, who accepted it. Macron was about to receive the members of the Constitutional Council for his traditional greetings, while the now "ex"-head of government rushed back to her office into a sedan.
"Mr. President, you have informed me of your desire to appoint a new prime minister," she wrote in her resignation letter, continuing, "While I must present the resignation of my government, I wanted to tell you how passionate I was about this mission." These words – borrowed from the missive written by Michel Rocard when he left the prime minister role in 1991, during Socialist President François Mitterrand's second term in office – were a reminder of her left-wing credentials, just after she pushed through Parliament an immigration law presented by the far right as an "ideological victory." The Rocard reference also meant that Borne, a former prefect, who was appointed to the prime minister's office in May 2022, was reluctantly leaving the post.
Two hours passed without any word being leaked from this confidential meeting between the two top figures of the French government. The fate of the prime minister – who was absent from the President's meeting with the Constitutional Council – was no longer in doubt. Yet Macron said nothing. It was 6 pm when the president ended the suspense and thanked Borne in a tweet, hailing her "exemplary" work and praising "her courage." "With all my heart, thank you," he wrote, illustrating his words with a photo showing him laughing alongside Borne.
Throughout the evening, observers searched in vain for the political significance of this departure. Borne weathered crises and successfully carried out the missions entrusted to her by Macron – painstakingly passing the pension reform bill in the spring of 2023 and then the immigration law the following December – at the cost of considerable turbulence within the majority. It seemed like she was devoted. Why sacrifice her? "There is no institutional logic behind Elisabeth Borne's departure," said Jean-Philippe Derosier, a specialist in constitutional law. "She did a good job," said sources at the Elysée.
However, after six and a half years at the Elysée – where Macron believes he has "repaired" the country – it was time to "close a cycle," explained a source close to the president. Macron wants to put "a semicolon, to give a breath of fresh air to his decade in power, by changing tone as one might do in a musical score or a poem," continued this same adviser to the Elysée team.
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