The former Prime Minister’s announcement of his presidential ambitions underlines the political fragility of the head of state, and demonstrates that the battle for his succession is well and truly underway.
With friends like that… It has been a while since we understood that Edouard Philipe no longer carried Emmanuel Macron in his heart. Since he left Matignon, the mayor of Le Havre has multiplied the positions taken distanced with regard to the head of state, to the point of judging inept his dissolution of the National Assembly. It is therefore relative surprise to see the former Prime Minister announce his candidacy for the next presidential election, while Emmanuel Macron gets bogged down a little more each day in his pond of unfindable Prime Ministers.
The head of state himself, not completely weak in the art of betrayal, will not be able to play the offended either. But still… That Edouard Philippe, his former Prime Minister, and especially leader of one of the parties (Horizons) that supports the President, announces his candidacy for the next presidential election in this timing so complicated for the Elysée speaks volumes about the political fragility of Emmanuel Macron. Because Edouard Philippe has not only assumed that he would be a candidate in 2027. He has assured that he is ready even in the event of an early presidential election, that is to say in the event of the President’s resignation.
That a Jean-Luc Mélenchon is pushing this scenario surprises no one. That Edouard Philippe admits to preparing for it takes on another meaning: the post-Macron era is officially open, and the one who took out the crowbar to open the door is inside the house… The end of the five-year term is therefore looking long for an Emmanuel Macron not only deprived of a majority in the Assembly but now at the head of a minority where long-bladed knives are out. And by mistreating the institutions, the head of state has deprived himself of the main weapons he had at his disposal to bounce back. The proof is the interminable saga of the appointment of the Prime Minister. Nothing in his management of the sequence indicates that the head of state can get his head above water. Edouard Philippe understood this and chose to push him a little deeper.
