Édouard Philippe

He was Prime Minister under Emmanuel Macron from 2017 to 2020 and has been mayor of Le Havre again since 2020. He founded and leads the Horizons party, placed in the centre-right. He announced in 2024 his candidacy for the 2027 French presidential election, in which he is named among the contenders.

Career

Philippe studied at Sciences Po, graduating in 1992, and at the École nationale d'administration from 1995 to 1997. He was deputy mayor of Le Havre from 2001 to 2010, mayor from 2010 to 2017 and a National Assembly member for Seine-Maritime from 2012 to 2017. He belonged to the UMP and then The Republicans before becoming an independent in 2017. Prime Minister from May 2017 to July 2020, he returned as mayor of Le Havre in 2020 and founded Horizons in October 2021. He was re-elected mayor in 2026.

Positions

Wikipedia describes his government as handling labour and tax reforms, the yellow vest protests, pension reform and the Covid-19 lockdown. It reports that he favours raising the retirement age to between 65 and 67, supports stricter immigration policy while opposing a blanket moratorium, and in autumn 2025 distanced himself from Macron, calling the 2024 dissolution of parliament disastrous and absurd.

Controversies

A Court of Justice of the Republic investigation opened in July 2020 into the government's handling of Covid-19 gave Philippe, Agnès Buzyn and Olivier Véran the status of assisted witness, without charges, according to Brut. The prosecutor general requested a dismissal on 21 May 2025 and Brut reported a dismissal was expected in November 2025. Wikipedia also notes criticism that masks were first described as unnecessary for the general public before a change of line in April 2020.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. Wikipedia (English) · Wikipedia (French) · Brut

Photo: Jacques Paquier, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons (cropped)