Published on September 15, 2023 at 6:15 p.m.
A book, interviews, a debate this Sunday at the Fête de l’Humanité and, this Friday, the closing speech of the parliamentary days and the embly of Mayors of his party, Horizons, in Angers: Edouard Philippe is deployed in all directions this fall . He takes the opportunity to distill, if not proposals, at least diagnoses, a few messages, “the line” that he wants to “hold”.
And here is the former Prime Minister who also takes up the theme of the middle and working cles, noting the “concern” of the French about “continuing inflation” and their purchasing power which, “for twenty years, erodes.” “Work no longer pays”, he was alarmed, estimating that “no democracy seems to me to be able to sustainably resist the impoverishment of the middle cl or even an absence of perspective from the middle cl”.
He also ranked among the concerns of the French to be addressed, that of global warming or the rise in violence. So many factors of instability which, he warns, could push towards “immobility to achieve appeat”.
A social question
On the contrary, he believes that “French society needs movement, perspectives, to rediscover and cultivate the foundations of its power”. Against the little music of “blockage”, he evokes the “Saint-Denis Meetings” launched by Emmanuel Macron the texts voted on despite the relative majority etc. and the ideas too, expressed in the majority. Here is indeed Edouard Philippe who once again supports the political escape of Gérald Darmanin at the end of August around the working cles, his “cry of warning”, he said.
“He is right to fear and therefore to fight against political segmentation which would lead to the majority no longer speaking to the working cles, or worse, to continuing to speak without being heard,” insists the mayor of Le Havre.
And at a distance of the social conference which is to take place in mid-October on low wages in particular , Edouard Philippe underlines, with a somewhat new vein for him, that “there is a social question in the France of 2023 as in that of the 19th century”, due according to him to “deindustrialization” and the “upheavals of a deregulated globalization. A social question which also means, he warns, that the “temptation of the extreme right has never been so strong”.
Some avenues for improvement
If Edouard Philippe clearly lets it be understood at this start of the school year that he wants to be the one who will offer perspectives when the time comes, in 2027, he is content to distill a few avenues for improvement. But not really, in the immediate future, any concrete proposals on purchasing power which could embarr the head of state or the government.
He therefore believes that local experiments – with exemptions – should be pushed as an antidote to blockages. He also warns that his Horizons party will “take up the fight against the disastrous rule of non-cumulative mandates” which many of its supporters point out as having disconnected deputies from the daily lives of the French.
But before 2027 other electoral deadlines will come: the senatorials on September 24, for which Horizons hopes to consolidate its positions. And especially, the European elections of June 2024 for which Edouard Philippe called out this Friday, recalling that “the climate and health emergency”, migration, digital and security issues, “call for European responses”.
Frexit without saying it
On the always delicate subject of the enlargement of the European Union, Edouard Philippe estimated, referring to Moldova, Ukraine, the Balkan countries, that “we are not ready to welcome them. »
And like Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne Thursday during the parliamentary days of Renaissance, the one who defines himself as “Euro-demanding” makes these elections a great fight between the “pro-Europeans” and the “populists”. He also called for “nothing to be ceded” to Marine Le Pen, who is due to go to Italy in the coming days, on “patriotism, sovereignty, the defense of the working cles. » He also pointed out, without naming them, the LR, castigating those who “propose a Frexit without saying it”.
In short, the battle is underway and the majority intends to offer an image of unity for this as these Europeans will be a major step forward on the road to 2027 that Edouard Philippe hopes to take.