Paris (AFP)
A majority of French people (54%) want the return to national political life of former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, whose popularity has jumped in a year, according to an Odoxa poll published on Monday.
54% of those questioned demand his return, against 45% who do not want it, according to a survey carried out for France Inter and the regional press.
Almost two-thirds of those surveyed (63%) have a good opinion of the mayor of Le Havre, an increase of 20 points compared to a previous survey in September 2019.
In detail, the French consider him dynamic (64%), competent (63%), solid (62%), sympathetic (61%) and even charismatic (54%).
According to the same poll, Emmanuel Macron's confidence rating drops by one point to 38%, and that of Prime Minister Jean Castex stands at 40%, eight points below that of Edouard Philippe in June.
More than 80 days after his departure from Matignon, Edouard Philippe therefore continues to surf in opinion polls on the wave of sympathy that has swelled with the management of the epidemic.
Thus, according to the Odoxa survey, the mayor of Le Havre is - by far - the favorite political figure of the French with a membership rating of 51%, ahead of the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot (45%).
Then come, far behind, Marine Le Pen (28%), Olivier Véran, Xavier Bertrand, Bruno Le Maire, Jean-Yves Le Drian (all at 27%) and François Baroin and Eric Dupont-Moretti (both 26%) .
After two months on low waves, during which he fell back on his town hall in Le Havre and took a few vacations, Mr. Philippe resurfaced to support his relatives engaged in the senatorial elections, like Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Wednesday in the Eure.
The Odoxa survey was conducted with a representative sample of 1,005 people, aged 18 and over, using the quota method, interviewed online on September 22 and 23 (margin of error of 1.4 to 3.1 point).
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