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Loyal ally or rival: Is former PM Phillippe set to challenge Macron for the Elysée in 2022?

When Edouard Philippe stepped aside as French prime minister July last year after three turbulent years marked by battling protests, strikes and the pandemic, he wore cufflinks adorned with flip-flops and had the air of a man happy to leave national politics.

Published: 7 April 2021 17:14 CEST

Loyal ally or rival: Is former PM Phillippe set to challenge Macron for the Elysée in 2022?

Former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe in Paris on April 4th. Photo: Thomas COEX / AFP

Philippe, who was almost unknown nationally when President Emmanuel Macron appointed him premier in 2017, retreated to the relative obscurity of his post as mayor of the Normandy city of Le Havre.

But after being thrust by Macron into the frontline of battling the “yellow vest” protests, strikes on pension reforms and then above all the Covid-19 pandemic, Philippe left office enjoying unusually high popularity and visibility for a French premier.

The question now is could Philippe – who left the main right-wing Les Républicains (LR) party ahead of becoming premier – now be plotting a course to challenge his former boss in 2022 presidential elections?

After keeping a low-profile for nine months, Philippe has suddenly reemerged over the last days, giving print and TV interviews and on Wednesday published a book he has co-written about his stint as prime minister.

But in a series of philosophical and sometimes sphinx-line musings on loyalty and freedom, he has left commentators scratching their heads over whether he plans to stand against Macron.

ANALYSIS: Four key questions on France’s 2022 presidential election

‘Freedom’

“The ambiguous game of Edouard Philippe is annoying the Macronistes,” said the Le Monde daily, using the term employed in France for diehard Macron loyalists.

“Edouard Phillipe: Is he loyal or a rival?” asked the left-leaning Libération on its front page Wednesday.

“The former prime minister is back on the national scene.”

After a listener on France Inter radio Wednesday told Philippe in a phone-in he would vote for him in a presidential election, the former premier let the speculation bubble further.

“I have a complete freedom today… If I can weigh into the public debate – and not just the presidential elections – then I will feel I am taking my responsibilities,” he said.

“I want no-one to doubt neither my loyalty, my liberty nor my desire to serve the country,” said Philippe, who conspicuously never joined Macron’s ruling Republic on the Move (LREM) ruling party.

In an interview with the Le Point weekly published last week, Philippe had said he has “no intention of seeing my convictions or my ideas go to waste without fighting for them,” adding he liked “to be in charge.”

Philippe had impressed with his earnest, realistic but assured tone during the darkest days of the pandemic’s first wave. His rising popularity was reportedly one reason Macron chose to replace him with Jean Castex in a reshuffle in July 2020.

‘Betrayal’

“He left in a state of grace, with his popularity at its height,” said Frederic Dabi, deputy director general of the Ifop pollster, told AFP.

“But popularity is not worth anything if it is not used,” he added.

Most analysts expect the 2022 elections to become a duel between the centrist Macron and far right leader Marine Le Pen.

But the emergence of a strong candidate on the right could upend calculations and even raise the possibility of one of the frontrunners being knocked out in the first round.

Former minister Xavier Bertrand, another right-wing heavyweight, has said he plans to stand. Like Philippe, he is no longer a member of The Republicans party.

Figures within The Republicans – the party of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy whose lingering ambitions may have been ended by a graft conviction – have made clear they won’t ever forgive Philippe for joining with Macron.

“His arrival as prime minister was shrouded in the betrayal of his political family and his ideas,” said the party’s deputy leader Guillaume Peltier.

“To entrust the future of France to him is like the Roman Empire entrusting its destiny to Brutus,” he said.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.