French Prime Minister’s Marrakech Getaway Sparks Backlash Amid Rail Strikes

While Matignon asked its ministers to "run the media to ensure the pedagogy of the pension reform" at the origin of numerous SNCF strikes, Élisabeth Borne had gone to Marrakech to spend sunny vacations, reported Le Parisien. This sparked criticism from the opposition. "In the midst of a social conflict, Élisabeth Borne is flying to Marrakech, these people in addition to being harmful to our country, our workforce, are contemptuous, cynical, selfish, without empathy," wrote Gérard Filoche, former PS representative on Twitter.

This trip is "a bad message that prevents negotiations with trade unions. If today we were facing a government that wanted to get out of the conflict, we would be in negotiations every day... but we can see that today, the instruction has been given to cut short any discussion, to postpone that to mid-January," estimated on Franceinfo Éric Meyer, federal secretary of the Sud Rail union.

These criticisms prompted her office to defend her. "There is no mileage rule or ban on ministers leaving the territory, the important thing is that she is totally reachable and mobilized, in constant contact with her office and her state secretaries, and that she can return to Paris in a few hours. The rest is a matter of her private life."

Élisabeth Borne claimed to be "totally" at her task. "I am totally mobilized, in constant contact with my teams, my state secretaries and my government colleagues. What matters to the French is that we are all mobilized for them, and that is the case," she said on LCI in 2020.