At the tribune of the Chanot park in Marseille (VIIIE), Édouard Philippe invited three influential local tenors: the owner of the Martine Vassal department, that of the Renaud Muselier region and the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi. The three left LR, just like the chief of horizons. None of them will therefore vote for Laurent Wauquiez or Bruno Retailleau This weekend but all are looking for their right champion for 2027. What if it was him, Édouard Philippe?
“I am a renaissance, I am with Macron, laughs Renaud Muselier in front of a hilarious room. We need to work together but we have to add, no hegemony! The message sounds like a warning: that the former Prime Minister does not already try an OPA on the right, two years from the future presidential election. However, this is what the declared candidate had in mind this Saturday during his third congress in Marseille.
“Perfect timing”
First, with the choice of casting. Muselier, Estrosi, Vassal on stage, after Darmanin in Lille two months ago: this is the right that Edouard Philippe wants to bring together for 2027. “He is the barium of all these beautiful people,” says a loved one. Then, thanks to the political agenda. Chance of the calendar, the president of the horizons had planned to organize this meeting the same weekend as the election to the presidency of the Republicans. He therefore advanced it for twenty-four hours. “A perfect timing,” smiles Jean-Marc Zulesi, the former Renaissance deputy who has just taken his card at horizons. In private, his entourage wants to believe that the shock of images of this weekend will turn into an asset for the ex-Prime Minister: on the one hand the divisions, on the other the rally.
In Marseille, Édouard Philippe delivers his vision of justice in a discourse to the many markers on the right. This time, that’s anything but a coincidence. Which voter of Laurent Wauquiez or Bruno Retailleau would not applaud when the candidate denounces justice “interminable slowness and hypocrite”? When he ensures that “part of violence is linked to immigration” and that France “has a problem with communitarianism”? Or when he took over Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign slogan in 2007, “working more to earn more”?
Throughout the one hour speech, the mayor of Le Havre hits the boxes of a “a real right program”, he supports, at the very moment when his old party, LR, takes up colors.
“From Trumpism to Little Feet”
“Édouard Philippe embodies a concrete and not populist firmness,” says the vice-president of his party, Christian Estrosi. To demonstrate this, the candidate descends in flames Laurent Wauquiez: “The French are not fooled by those who make Trumpism at the little feet by dreaming of resuscitating the prison of the Count of Monte-Cristo, in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon (…) of anything populist who begins in stuffing and ends in tragedy. »»
Not his right therefore, unlike those of Gérald Darmanin and Bruno Retailleau, whose action he saluted to the government, without at that time arouse the applause of nearly 2,000 activists. “On the ground, there is a hype (fashion, in French) Retailleau, notes Marine Cazard, head of the youth pole in Horizons, but which does not exceed the already convinced electorate. Édouard goes beyond. »»
Driver proposals
But not too far either. In Bordeaux, Lille then Marseille, Édouard Philippe is content, most of the time, to paint a portrait of the country, “the observation of French evils”, according to his advisor Clément Tonon. But the proposals are distilled on the drop by the candidate. On the judicial system, the former lawyer pleads for the execution of short sorrows, the return of floors “for the most serious offenses” and the abolition of the judge of application of the sentences. “The transformation will be massive,” he promises.
While waiting for the massif and noisy right program promised for spring 2026, the owner of horizons will continue, at low noise, his Tour de France des Sous-prefectures, before a new meeting at the end of August on youth and A new book in September, as the Parisian revealed in early May.
Back to Chanot Park. At the end of the meeting, the “Marseillaise” sounded and two young activists go up on stage to offer Édouard Philippe a jersey from Olympique de Marseille. Flocked on the back: number 27, for 2027. This season, OM will not finish first in the championship. He only targets this place.
