PREZ MACRON NAMES ÉDOUARD PHILIPPE AS FRENCH PM
PARIS: France’s newly-elected President Emmanuel Macron has named Édouard Philippe as Prime Minister, according to a statement from the Élysée Palace.
The 46-year-old lawmaker and mayor of Le Havre is from the conservative Les Republicains party. He had been tipped as a favourite for the role as Macron attempts to gain support from both the left and right ahead of June’s Parliamentary electio ns. The move by centrist Macron will be seen as a strategic one as France’s youngest leader tries to broaden his appeal.
It is the first time in modern French political history that a president has appointed a prime minister from outside his camp without being forced to by a defeat in parliamentary elections. The former banker’s presidential win itself represented a seismic shift in a political landscape dominated for decades by the two main leftwing and right-wing parties.
One of his key campaign pledges was to dismantle the political divide between left and right.
French presidents are able to appoint their own choice for prime minister, but only if they hold a majority in the National Assembly. The outcome of next month’s legislative elections will determine whether he will be forced to replace Philippe.
Macron is expected to move quickly on both domestic and foreign issues, just a day into his presidency. He will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday in a bid to affirm his commitment to the European project, one of his aides said. He is also expected to announce his cabinet appointments on Tuesday.
In his new role, Philippe will be responsible for presiding over the government and carrying out the president’s political programme. A close working relationship between both men will be key although Philippe has not always been conciliatory towards his new boss.
Like Macron, Philippe is pro-european. He graduated from secondary school in Bonn, in Germany, and speaks fluent German. A trained lawyer, he worked as public affairs director for the French state nuclear group Areva between 2007 and 2010. “For many people, who are intimidated by his powers of seduction and reformist rhetoric, Macron is the natural heir of Kennedy and Mendès-france [a former Socialist prime minister of France]. But that’s unlikely.
The former was more charismatic, and the latter more principled,” he wrote in a newspaper article in January.
Philippe is married and has three children. He loves boxing and cold-water swimming and has written political fiction.