The Prime Minister launches into battle: Edouard Philippe will run as the top candidate in the municipal elections in Le Havre in March. " I've made my decision. I matured it like any important decision. I decided to be a candidate for mayor of Le Havre as head of the list (…) In a democracy, the foundation of legitimacy is election ”, declared the ex-mayor of the Norman city ( 2010-2017), Friday in an interview with the daily Paris-Normandy.
“Our citizens do not want above all political leaders above ground. I'm happy to be able to face universal suffrage again and I think it's very healthy, ”he said. "To offer the people of Le Havre and the people of Le Havre a project for six years, to gain their confidence, all this is essential if we want to make things happen," he added.
Edouard Philippe, expected Friday evening at a meeting in Le Havre, thus puts an end to several months of suspense around his candidacy, which he had revived the hypothesis last September by recalling, in a declaration of public love for the city, that his Docker's great-grandson "guts" tasted "of salt water".
Edouard Philippe ensures "never envisaged a political engagement elsewhere than in Le Havre"
The Prime Minister, to whom intentions had been attributed to Paris for this election, assured that he had "never considered a political engagement elsewhere than in Le Havre", where he was elected since 2001 and made a career, first under the tutoring of the emblematic mayor Antoine Rufenacht. "This is the city I love. This is where my ties are, ”pleaded the man who does not miss an opportunity to sing the merits of the port in his public interventions. "It is here and nowhere else that I want to confront universal suffrage," he insisted.
Elected in the first round in 2014 under the UMP label (now Les Républicains) with 52% of the vote, Edouard Philippe stressed that "his greatest ambition" was to become mayor again. A function he describes privately as "the level of public action that I prefer". In the meantime, "if the President of the Republic continues to trust me, I will continue to fulfill my mission as Prime Minister because we do not shirk when it comes to serving his country", he said. he continued.
"The day my mission ends in Matignon, I wish to become mayor again"
Thus, if he was elected on the evening of March 22, Edouard Philippe would propose that the current mayor (LR) Jean-Baptiste Gastinne keep the chair. And "the day when my mission will end in Matignon, I wish, if the people of Le Havre obviously trust me, to become mayor again because this is where I want to continue to invest, because I want Le Havre to continue its transformation. That is what is essential, ”he observed.
Without specifying the outlines of his program which he describes as "ambitious", Edouard Philippe assured that he would lead "an intense campaign in Le Havre", while fulfilling his "obligations in Paris", while the pension reform continues its journey through scrutiny in Parliament and through discussions with the social partners. But in this tense context, the Prime Minister rejected any attempt to "draw national lessons from the Havre elections". "Commentators will comment, they love it ... It's not my subject. I want to talk about Le Havre and what I want to do for the city, ”he said.
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