Le Havre (AFP)

Edouard Philippe predicted Friday "a difficult election", both "humanly" and "politically" in a tense social context, but affirmed that "we do not abdicate the honor of being a target", at the launch of his municipal campaign in Le Havre.

"I know that the election that is coming will be a difficult election," declared the Prime Minister in front of several hundred of his supporters gathered in a small room in the Norman city.

The ballot of March 15 and 22 will be "humanly difficult in the sense that I must make the distinction between the candidate that I am in Le Havre and the Prime Minister that I am all the time," he continued.

"And politically difficult because some will want to make this election a national test. Some may try to moderate the debate, or even prevent it," he said, while outside sounds were heard. detonations and sirens from a few hundred demonstrators.

"But after all, I decided to go," said Philippe.

Edouard Philippe, mayor of Le Havre from 2010 until his accession to Matignon in 2017, formalized on Friday morning his candidacy as head of list in his home port, "the only city where I can consider presenting myself by universal suffrage" .

"It is a choice that has been long matured and obvious," he pleaded.

To explain it, Mr. Philippe underlined that "when we have a balance sheet, the least of things is to be at the rendezvous of the commitments that we have made".

And then, "we don't abdicate the honor of being a target," he insisted, paraphrasing Cyrano by Edmond Rostand. "No one would have understood that I am not the one who leads the list, takes stock and presents the project," he observed.

If elected, Mr. Philippe repeated that he would cede the chair to the outgoing mayor (LR) Jean-Baptiste Gastinne, the time of his lease in Matignon.

"My only political ambition is to be mayor of Le Havre when this mission ends," he said. "I have known Prime Ministers who had other political ambitions, not me," he promised, again dismissing any inclination to stand in the presidential election of 2022.

Regarding his program, which he will detail in the coming weeks, it will be "made for a lot of continuity, consistency, but also ambition". His list will be marked with the seal of "gathering, opening and renewal": "partisan affiliations are quite largely indifferent to me," said Mr. Philippe, elected in 2014 under the label UMP (now LR), a party that he had "helped found" and that he has now left.

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