“I will be a candidate in the next presidential election,” Edouard Philippe stated in an interview with weekly magazine The Point on Tuesday, September 3. The next presidential election is currently scheduled for 2027, but Philippe confirmed he would be running if an earlier one was called.
Read more Subscribers only Edouard Philippe opens post-Macron era with announcement of presidential run
“I’m getting ready to make proposals to the French people. What I will propose will be massive. The French will decide,” explained the president of the Horizons party, who served as prime minister under Emmanuel Macron from 2017 to 2020. His party remains one of Macron’s allies in Parliament.
While the mayor of Le Havre’s ambitions to become president were hardly a mystery, particularly in view of his constant popularity in the polls, Philippe had never before publicly confirmed his presence on the starting line in 2027.
“It’s often said that for a presidential election, you shouldn’t want to do anything else. I subscribe to that,” insisted Philippe, declaring himself ready, even in the event of an early presidential election.
Asked about Macron’s prolonged consultations over choosing the next prime minister and the suggestions of Xavier Bertrand and Bernard Cazeneuve, Philippe replied that he would support “any prime minister chosen from a political spectrum ranging from the conservative right to social democracy.”
“All governing parties should have as their main objective the stabilization of political life,” continued Philippe. He addressed a message to his former party, the right-wing Les Républicains: “The right must become engaged. By refusing to participate in this central bloc, it is pushing everything to the left,” he stressed.
Interview from 2023 Subscribers only Former French PM Edouard Philippe: ‘I don’t define my political fight as a fight against the far right’
