“The only one who bothers us is Édouard Philippe, but he will be taken care of”. Given the early hour of this column, it is the watered down version of a quote published Wednesday, April 27 in the magazine Obs. The original sentence was much more flowery, even frankly more violent. And these small phases in the press, they pass more and more badly in the entourage of Edouard Philippe.
“For weeks, not a day without a cowry”, deplores one of his relatives. It gets stuck between the entourages of the president and his former prime minister. Friends of Édouard Philippe say they do not understand where all this violence comes from. But within the Macronie, many of them still have a small idea. Édouard Philippe claims that he has always been loyal to Emmanuel Macron but at the top of the state, some list his supposed faults.
“The original sin is to have founded his Horizons party.”
An adviser to the presidentat franceinfo
“During the campaign, he maintained the idea that Marine Le Pen could win”points another. “When Macron came to Le Havre, he played dumb”, observes a third. Consequences: relations are icy. “Édouard Philippe, it was Macron who did it”mocks a macronist.
The former Prime Minister is kept at a distance. He was not invited to a working lunch on the legislative elections this week at the Élysée. Behind the scenes, the Republic in March even assumes to go poaching to find legislative candidates on the right without going through Horizons. “It is a mistake to want to do without us”threatens an elected official close to Édouard Philippe.
So is there a future for Édouard Philippe in a possible majority? This is the great unknown. MEP Gilles Boyer says they are “ready to discuss for a single candidate from the presidential majority in each constituency”. This would be the logic, Emmanuel Macron needing the largest possible majority. But in reality, he doesn’t seem willing to grow Horizons. “If Édouard wants to exist, he will make his little music heard on each text”, predicts a member of the executive and the risk of slingers worries the Elysée.
“Macron saw that with Hollande, he hated this impotence.”
A faithful of the presidentat franceinfo
Within Macronie, the negotiations therefore promise to be complicated in view of the legislative elections and on the right from which Edouard Philippe comes, we observe all this while drinking whey. On Wednesday, an old veteran, well settled in a large armchair at the LR headquarters, confided to me, rubbing his hands: “Macron considers Philippe as a collaborator. This is only the beginning of the tensions”.