PERSON AND PLACES
The 61-year-old, Ms.Elisabeth Borne has been appointed as the new Prime Minister of France. She is the second woman Prime Minister of the country. She was nominated by the French President Mr.Emanuel Macron. The first woman Prime Minister of the country is Ms.Edith Cresson, who served from 1991to 1992 under Socialist President Francois Mitterrand.
She succeeds Mr.Jean Castex, who resigned from the post. The resignation of Mr.Castex was expected after Macron’s reelection last month to a second five-year term.
Ms.Elisabeth and the French President Mr.Macron will form a new French government in the coming days. The new government will draft a new bill addressing the rising cost of living in France, where food and energy prices are surging.
Borne’s first mission will be to make sure that her centrist party and its allies do well in the upcoming parliamentary election in June 2022.
If Macron’s party wins a majority in the Assembly, Ms.Elisabeth will then need to ensure that pension changes promised by the president are put into law, including raising the minimum retirement age from 62 to 65.
Ms.Elisabeth joined Macron’s centrist party in 2017 and served as a labor minister since 2020. As a labor minister, she implemented changes making it harder for jobless people to get benefits and reduced monthly payments for some unemployed people. She became CEO in 2015 of the state-owned transport company RATP, which operates the Paris metro.