Eyes on Le Havre. Once is not customary, this Sunday, on the evening of the first round of the municipal elections, many spotlights will be shone on the port city and above all, on the score of Edouard Philippe. The Prime Minister, whose last meeting this Thursday evening was canceled due to “the situation on the coronavirus”, took care throughout the campaign to speak in Le Havre only of his vision of Le Havre. But its fate in Seine-Maritime will obviously have a national impact.
If Edouard Philippe is no longer LR inserted and has never taken the LREM label, his score will give a little “la”, an indication of the extent or not of the sanction vote against the presidential majority. This, after a first-round campaign in Le Havre where national policy has continued to interfere and where the Prime Minister’s adversaries dream, like PCF deputy Jean-Paul Lecoq, head of the list “Le Havre citizen “, To make this ballot a” anti-philippines referendum “
Difficult and tight
The possibility of a defeat of Edouard Philippe in his fief, where he had been elected in 2014 from the first round, revives speculation about his future in Matignon, as at every moment of political crisis. “ If the Prime Minister is defeated in Le Havre, there will obviously be a subject in Matignon, you don’t have to be a great clerk to say that “, Loose a minister who advances however” do not believe in defeat, even if the climate is heavier “
“ He took his risk, he embarked on this election knowing that it would be difficult and tight ”, recognizes his entourage, who slides in passing that “ you can’t want to be in politics and not go to voters regularly “
The Ifop poll published last week gives Edouard Philippe largely in the lead at 42% of the votes in the first round, ahead of the list of Jean-Paul Lecoq at 25% then that of the ecologist supported by the PS Alexis Deck at 16% and 10% RN. It has been widely commented on in the majority. Some say that despite everything, the dynamics are there and that even in the event of a probable union of the left in the second round, the votes do not add up automatically. Others point out that his election is far from being won, fearing that a victory would strengthen the right wing of the majority.
In short, this ballot reactivates here as elsewhere the left-right divides and the debates on the line of act 2 of the quinquennium. “ All those who amuse themselves speculating on the risks of a reinforcement of the Prime Minister as on the possibility of his fall, it affects one without moving the other“, Tries to close a close friend of Edouard Philippe with a Chiraquian verve. To check on Sunday.
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