Former French PM fortifies presidential bid with strong showing in municipal race

PARIS — Former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s reelection as mayor of Le Havre is positioning him as the leading candidate to take on the far right in next year’s presidential election.

The contest was an important test for the center-right politician, as he had conditioned his bid for the Elysée on securing another term leading the industrial port city, which in the past tended to lean left. A poll released ahead of the vote showed Philippe in real danger of losing to a Communist challenger — an outcome that would have scuttled his plans to run for president.

But Philippe shut down skeptics by winning the runoff by more than six points. Then a Toluna Harris Interactive survey conducted online just after polls closed in the nationwide municipal elections showed Philippe on track for a second-place finish in the first round of the 2027 presidential contest, though still trailing National Rally President Jordan Bardella by 17 points.

Philippe looks primed to come out the other end of this make-or-break moment stronger. Building momentum now could help separate Philippe from the rest of a very crowded field of candidates in the race for the Elysée, though there’s still more than a year to go.

“Everything sort of starts today,” Nathalie Loiseau, a MEP from Philippe’s Horizons party and one of its heavyweights, told POLITICO. “There are reasons to hope.”

Philippe, who was the first of the center-right contenders to declare his presidential bid, is already rolling out campaign events, with April 12 bookmarked for a large-scale rally in Paris, according to two party officials — though Loiseau declined to confirm the event.

“Le Havre’s people know that there is reason for hope when all people of good will come together … and reject the extremes and their simplistic solutions,” Philippe said in his victory speech Sunday from Le Havre.

The politician’s strong performance in the first round and his comfortable win in the runoff drew a sigh of relief from his allies on Sunday — and led some of his most prominent rivals to publicly acknowledge his front-runner status.

Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, himself a presidential hopeful, called on Philippe to unite centrists behind him.

“He now needs to unite people [around him], for us to have an only candidate,” Darmanin said on France 2 last week.

A person close to Darmanin told POLITICO that Philippe’s performance was “a bucket of cold water” for the justice minister’s presidential aspirations.

Experience vs. youth

France’s 2027 presidential race looks likely to be the most consequential in a decade, with the far-right National Rally consistently polling more than 15 percentage points ahead of other parties.

Despite failing to pick up high-profile targets like Marseille, Nîmes and Toulon, the far right celebrated its performance Sunday. Bardella told supporters in Paris the far right had achieved the “biggest breakthrough of its history,” while his mentor Marine Le Pen said the National Rally had scored “dozens” of regional victories.

The National Rally’s biggest win on Sunday came on the French Riviera, where one of its allies won Nice, France’s fifth-most-populous city. However, political watchers were quick to note that the victory was more attributable to local rightwing baron-turned-far-right-ally Eric Ciotti than to Bardella.

Loiseau argued there was no National Rally “wave” in these local elections, flagging the party’s failure to achieve a decisive breakthrough in large and midsize cities.

But she said the far right’s slow and steady rise, including in rural areas that used to be strongholds of moderate politics, shouldn’t be underestimated.

Bardella is the National Rally’s most likely candidate next year unless Marine Le Pen successfully appeals the five-year election ban she was handed as the result of an embezzlement conviction.

Bardella’s popularity has risen steadily, but he has never personally won election for local or national government.

Philippe’s allies are hoping his credentials as prime minister during Emmanuel Macron’s first term and extensive background in politics will give him a decisive edge should he qualify to run against the National Rally in the 2027 runoff.

Bardella’s opponents see his lack of executive-level experience as a key weakness in a presidential contest, especially as Europe is embroiled in two major international conflicts.

“Edouard Philippe was a prime minister during a major crisis, which was Covid. He has an international stature,” said Loiseau. “You can imagine him facing Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. This isn’t necessarily true of everyone who is either an official candidate or would like to be a candidate.”