Edouard Philippe admits having dinner with Marine Le Pen, François Bayrou sees it as “a bad signal”

The former Prime Minister admitted on Tuesday to having dined with the three-time candidate for the Elysée. Dining with the leader of the extreme right “more or less means that we can imagine that there are rapprochements,” regretted the president of the MoDem.

A dinner that doesn’t go down well. Former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, a potential contender for the 2027 presidential election like Marine Le Pen, admitted on Tuesday July 9 on TF1 to having dined with the three-time candidate for the Elysée, as revealed ReleaseAccording to the daily, Thierry Solère, former advisor to Emmanuel Macron, organized dinners at his home, bringing together members of Macron’s party, such as the mayor of Le Havre, but also the current Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu, and leaders of the National Rally.

“We had dinner because we don’t know each other very well,” explained the leader of the Horizons party. “We found at the dinner – which was a cordial dinner – that we had very deep disagreements on many issues,” he added, considering that this approach does not “[dérangeait] not”.

MoDem president François Bayrou said on Wednesday that it was a “bad signal towards the country“to have dinner with Marine Le Pen, regretting the choice of Edouard Philippe. “There is an unbridgeable gap between us and the extreme right,” assured François Bayrou on BFMTV. Dinner with the leader of the extreme right “means more or less that we can imagine that there are connections”, he regretted, while judging “absolutely essential” of“to try to understand” the reasons for voting RN.

The LR president of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, for her part estimated on franceinfo that “When you go to dinner with someone, when you share bread with someone, it’s a bit like we’re close.” “I wouldn’t have dinner with Mrs. Le Pen or Mr. Bardella,” she added.