Low-profile mayor Macron’s new PM
FRANCE’S new President Emmanuel Macron named Edouard Philippe, a little-known centre-right mayor, as prime minister yesterday, in his first major decision since taking power on a promise to lead a French renaissance.
Philippe, a 46-year-old MP and mayor of the northern port of Le Havre, comes from the moderate wing of the right-wing Republicans party and is seen as a pragmatist.
His appointment was seen as a strategic move by 39-year-old Macron, who is trying to woo modernisers of all stripes to his new centrist party, La Republique en Marche (Republic on the Move).
France’s youngest-ever president has already attracted dozens of Socialist MPs to his side, triggering a major realignment in French politics that has left the traditional parties floundering.
Like Macron, Philippe is a product of France’s elite ENA college for senior public servants and worked in the private sector for a while.
Relatively unknown outside his Le Havre fiefdom, he has already crossed the floor once in his career, defecting from the Socialists to the Republicans as a young politician.
One of Macron’s aides welcomed his appointment as a good move, saying it would help him to break the right.
Taking office on Sunday, the former investment banker who trounced far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the May 7 presidential run-off, said he aimed to restore France’s shattered selfconfidence.
The fervently pro-European Macron also said he would help rebuild the flagging European Union.
Like Macron, France’s new prime minister has little truck with the entrenched left-right divide.
After campaigning for Socialist prime minister Michel Rocard as a youth, Philippe switched to the right, becoming a close ally of centre-right former prime minister Alain Juppe.
Mayor of Le Havre since 2010, the German-speaking father of three, who writes crime novels in his spare time, was elected to parliament in 2012.
His first task will be to help Macron finalise his cabinet choices, to be announced today.
Macron has said he wants a mix of experience and new blood, a balance he has attempted to achieve in his slate of candidates for the June 11-18 election.