Édouard Philippe, who suffers from alopecia, regained his hair without treatment or operation

It's a mystery that science is not capable of clarifying: the former Prime Minister's hair suddenly began to grow back. This disease, which is neither dangerous nor contagious, affects one in 100 people at varying intensities.

“I came back from among the bald“, with these words the former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announces in an interview with Parisian, Saturday January 18, that alopecia, the disease that caused him to lose his hair, eyebrows and beard, suddenly recedes, without intervention.

The former head of government announced in February 2023 that he suffered from alopecia areata, which affects one in 100 people to varying degrees. His immune system has gone haywire, which is called an autoimmune disease. There are dozens of them, sometimes very serious, but not in this case. White blood cells, the soldiers that defend our body, attack hair follicles and therefore prevent hair from growing, in a form that is particularly marked for Édouard Philippe.

If the former Prime Minister's hair suddenly began to grow back, it was quite simply because his white blood cells had regained their calm. But medicine today does not explain why. Philippe Assouly, dermatologist, member of the French Society of Dermatology, hair specialist, describes a disease “capricious”. Édouard Philippe's alopecia areata could indeed return in a day, a year, ten years… or never. “We must remain humble, there are many unknowns, as with many diseases,” recognizes the dermatologist.

Édouard Philippe will, in any case, have made alopecia areata known to the general public, and allowed it to be “play down“, welcomes Philippe Assouly. The disease is neither dangerous nor contagious, even if some patients have difficulty coping with the physical change, sometimes radical. The former head of government did not follow it, but there are treatments: lotion or cortisone and ultraviolet injection, for example. They help to stop hair loss, but it resumes at the end of the treatment.