Édouard Philippe said on Friday on France Bleu that he was preparing “in a relaxed, but serious way” for the 2027 presidential election, for which he is hiding his candidacy ambitions less and less.
“It would be criminal not to be ready”
“Many people think that 2027 is a long way off. But I learned that when you prepare for something difficult, you have to prepare for it. That’s what I do, in a very relaxed way, but at the same time very serious,” said the former Prime Minister. “It would be a shame not to be ready. It would even be criminal not to be ready, even given the stakes,” he already assured on December 20, on the set of Quotidien, on TMC.
A preparation which “goes through travel in France. I read, I meet people, I try to think, I try to propose, I travel abroad”, he explained. “And we try to surround ourselves, because we never do anything alone,” he added, confiding that he was “building” a team. The mayor of Le Havre has been increasing his travels for several months and does not intend to stop in 2024. After bringing together a few hundred executives from his Horizons party on Tuesday evening in Paris, he was in Aisne on Wednesday. He will also soon travel to Mayenne, Sarthe and New Caledonia.
“Moving around is also a time when we listen, where we learn. What interests me is to hear what associative actors, those responsible for social structures, entrepreneurs have to say and to nourish my thoughts,” he explained on Friday.
More than three years after his departure from the government, Édouard Philippe remains very popular with the French according to polls. At the end of December, he was notably at the top of the political figures with whom the French would like to have a beer, nevertheless neck and neck with two potential competitors for 2027, according to an Ifop study: the president of the National Rally Marine Le Pen and the future Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.