French Prime Minister speaks publicly about the suicide of her Auschwitz-survivor father when she was eleven

The Prime Minister of France has spoken publicly about the suicide of her father, who was a Holocaust survivor, when she was eleven years old.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne explained her personal history in interviews with Paris Match and LCI Television after critics accused her of lacking emotion in her public persona.

Ms Borne’s father, Joseph Bornstein, was a Jewish refugee who fled Poland for France in 1940, before going on to fight for the French resistance during the Second World War. He was captured by German forces and sent to Auschwitz in 1944, but he survived. He later took his own life.

Ms Borne said: “It’s shocking for an eleven-year-old girl to lose her father in these conditions. And I think I closed up and that I avoid showing my emotions too much. I think…this closing up, maybe, goes a little far. Yes.”

According to a report published by the French Jewish community’s main watchdog, antisemitic incidents in France have skyrocketed. Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on antisemitic incidents in France.