Edouard Philippe tilts right to combat far right in French presidential race
France’s former PM is popular, but he faces numerous challenges to prevent Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella from winning the Élysée.
By CLEA CAULCUTT
in REIMS, France
Photo-illustration by Júlia Vadler/POLITICO via Getty Images
Former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe believes it’s France’s mainstream conservative voters who will propel him to the presidency in a showdown with the far right next year.
Philippe, a one-time ally of centrist President Emmanuel Macron, held onto his job as mayor of the gritty Normandy port city of Le Havre in a tight municipal election in March, when he defeated a strong challenge from the Communists.
That victory boosted Philippe’s credentials as the best-placed candidate to face off against either Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella from the far-right National Rally next year in an election that threatens to send shockwaves through the EU and NATO.
The only question was when Philippe would make his move for the Elysée.
He finally launched his campaign at a rally of his Horizons party last week, in the northeastern city of Reims in Champagne country, and made clear his plan was not to style himself as a universally appealing centrist alternative to the far right, but to lead a campaign with a conspicuous right-wing slant.
Few doubt that Philippe could act as unifying candidate in the second-round in 2027 but his biggest strategic concern is that he will need to get there first. The appeal to conservatives is an attempt to ensure that he has a core base that will mobilize for him in the first round.
“I know where I came from: from the right,” he told more than 800 party delegates, stressing his origins in the conservative political family that gave France presidents such as Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac. “I know who I am: at the head of a rightwing party.”
During his hour-long speech, he leaned into several conservative talking points: slashing red tape, cutting corporate turnover tax and cracking down on drug trafficking.
Rivals on the right
But will the right-wing positioning work? The immediate danger is that other center-right figures such as Bruno Retailleau, leader of the conservative Les Républicains, and another former prime minister, Gabriel Attal, look set to encroach on his political turf with their own candidacies.
Retailleau, to Philippe’s right, is leading a hardline campaign and promising to slash immigration, even if that means changing the French constitution. To his left, Attal is pursuing an aggressive media strategy with interviews and snappy videos, and, according to several recent polls, is catching up with Philippe.
Then, Philippe faces the problem that he is moderately liked by everybody, but loved by no one, which partly explains why he wants to put a clear conservative stamp on his campaign. Despite promising a “massively optimistic” vision for France, he is conspicuously avoiding details on explosive issue such as pensions and immigration.
For now, however, the political tide is with him. With mainstream centrist parties in disarray, Philippe is the candidate seen as having built the strongest bond with the French electorate after steering them through the trauma of the Covid pandemic.
Despite that, a second-round against the far right would probably be nailbitingly close.
A poll by Elabe at the end of March on potential second-round outcomes in 2027 predicted Philippe could beat Le Pen by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent and Bardella by 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent.
Philippe’s supporters insist there is a compelling electoral logic not to lay out too many policy priorities too early.
“There’s one year to go before the presidential election, we can’t unveil everything,” said the Mayor of Reims Arnaud Robinet. “Ideas don’t stick in the political debate for more than two or three months, the French will already have forgotten several times by the election.”
Critics accuse Philippe of an excessive caution that may count against him. “He knows very well that peeling away ambiguity means taking a risk,” said a former centrist minister. “Right now, it’s difficult to see what his project is.”
Avoiding the same mistakes
There’s also an ominous shadow from recent electoral history hanging over Philippe’s presidential ambitions: the memory of his mentor, Alain Juppé, another conservative former prime minister who was widely tipped to become the president in 2017.
Philippe was Juppé’s spokesperson during that ill-fated campaign, and watched first-hand his humiliation when he was unexpectedly beaten by a hardline rival in a party primary in 2016.
“They [Juppé and Philippe] are the same: very intelligent, brilliant, technocratic statesmen. Philippe is scarred by the experience … but he has learned from it,” said a conservative political adviser involved in the Juppé campaign, who like others cited in this piece was granted anonymity to talk candidly on party thinking.
Much like Juppé, Philippe enjoys a broad appeal rather than inspiring deep partisan enthusiasm. But in France, it sometimes doesn’t pay to be too much of a consensual unifier.
“Popularity doesn’t necessarily translate into votes … it helps to be divisive,” said Frédéric Dabi, a pollster with the IFOP institute. He recalled controversial but successful politicians such as former President Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-left candidate for next year’s race.
Philippe is, however, buoyed by his competent handling of the pandemic.
“I’m struck by the fact that, six years later, he still inspires such trust among the French,” said Dabi. Philippe has consistently been in the top five of IFOP’s ranking of the most popular political figures.
Determined not to make the same mistakes as Juppé, Philippe is anchoring his campaign firmly on the right and cultivating a grassroots network of party supporters.
“Alain Juppé’s mistake is that he didn’t speak to his voters enough before the first round [of voting],” said Mayor of Reims Robinet. “But we are proud to be a right-wing party.”
Philippe has cultivated a deliberately low-key, authentic image: a steady hand capable of steering France through global storms. He rarely posts online, doesn’t have a TikTok account, and has been quietly touring the country away from television cameras.
“Edouard is someone who hold himself upright, wears a tie, speaks seriously but has a good dose of humor,” said a close friend of the candidate, who was granted anonymity to protect relationships. “He’s deeply reasonable, but reasonable doesn’t mean boring.”
Still, in an era dominated by viral clips and bombastic personalities, his restraint is counter-intuitive. In the rival camp, Bardella is flooding the media landscape with rallies, TikTok videos and carefully curated glimpses of his romance with a royal heiress.
The far right has already started mocking Philippe’s branding. Bardella dismissed his campaign as harking back to 1970s, while Frédéric Falcon, a lawmaker from the far-right National Rally, wrote that he was peddling “old-fashioned ideas.”
On stage on Sunday, Philippe claimed he would take lessons from nobody.
“Some say I’m not on TikTok enough, but I’m not sure that’s the only way to talk to the young,” he said.
Elusive unity
On stage in Reims, Philippe again hinted at a “massive” campaign platform that would unite voters, and particularly on the right, beyond his own Horizons party.
He announced a broad consultation with French companies to identify rules and regulation that need cutting, to help French entrepreneurs “go faster.”
“We’re not going to simplify, we are going to eliminate” regulation, he said.
He added he would start talks with trade unions to discuss his plans to reform French state pensions, possibly the most incendiary topic on the campaign trail. He also pledged he would lead a pro-business “supply-side” economic policy and lead a major push to restore order and security in France.
But it won’t be an easy task to strike an alliance with Retailleau, who, according to party insiders, privately says he doesn’t believe Philippe has “political capital” thanks to public hostility towards his former boss, Macron. Instead, Retailleau believes he will eventually “overtake him in the polls.”
Retailleau has instead embraced a more hardline brand of conservatism, even taking a leaf out of the far-right playbook and calling for France to ignore European legislation on immigration.
With Attal, talks may be more straightforward. The official presidential candidate of Macron’s liberal Renaissance party has said publicly he would reach an agreement with Philippe on who would run early 2027, only a couple of months before the election in the spring.
But according to Philippe’s supporters, that’s already too late. “If it drags on, it’ll be harder to merge rival teams. There’ll be more and more antagonism in the campaign,” said a Horizons lawmaker.
Philippe is already engaged in talks with several politicians from Les Républicains figures, the same lawmaker said.
But he has to tread carefully, and avoid doing anything would jeopardize his broader popularity, in particular with the moderate left whom he will need to beat Bardella and Le Pen.
“A ticket with Retailleau would alienate voters,” said another Horizons lawmaker.
Sofiane Zaizoune contributed to this report.
Edouard Philippe tilts right to combat far right in French presidential race
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