The real false suspense is lifted. In an interview at Paris-Normandy, Friday January 31, the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, announced that he will be candidate at the head of the list in Le Havre during the municipal elections of March 15 and 22. A homecoming in a city he directed between 2010 and 2017, before leaving his mayor’s chair when joining Matignon. ” I’ve made my decision. I matured it like any important decision ”, he declares to the regional daily.
A choice in the continuity of his remarks made, in September 2019, when he assured rejecting the hypothesis of a candidacy in Paris – however defended by some of his relatives -, his ” Gut “ having, he says, “A taste of salt water”. “Many encouraged me to study candidates in Bordeaux and Paris … It was obviously flattering, but I never considered a political engagement elsewhere than in Le Havre, assures Mr. Philippe to Paris-Normandy. It is the city where my political commitment was born and which I want to continue to transform. “
The only one able to exceed 50% from the first round
It remained, then, to determine the place to occupy on the list. Edouard Philippe, according to his entourage, would not have really hesitated about taking the first position. “If you go, this is the preferred scenario. Topping the list, you can’t hide, and he doesn’t want to hide, assures one of his relatives. There is no other place than that of pole position. It is your face that the people of Le Havre want to see. “ Even if it means taking the risk of federating against him the resentments linked to its action at the national level.
“He knows his city well, his springs. If he takes this risk, it is because he has measured the stakes. He knows the symbolic significance of his presence “, notes a relative of Emmanuel Macron. A confidential survey, commissioned in the fall of 2019 by La République en Marche (LRM), indeed showed that the Prime Minister was the only candidate able to exceed the 50% mark in the first round. “The difference between him and the current mayor is ten points”, notes a party executive.
Subject like all his ministers to the rule of non-cumulation between his governmental function and the direction of a local executive, Edouard Philippe does not intend to leave Matignon in case of victory. It would therefore be the current mayor, Jean-Baptiste Gastinne, who would act in the interim, he announced. “If the President of the Republic continues to trust me, I will continue to fulfill my mission as Prime Minister because we do not shy away from serving his country, justifies Mr. Philippe. I was mayor before being Prime Minister, and my greatest ambition is to become him again as soon as the mission entrusted by the President of the Republic ends. “
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