The second round havrais of the municipal could take a turn tricky to Edouard Philippe, who will face Jean-Paul Lecoq. The stakes are high for the Prime minister, both at national and local level.
The Prime minister arrived at the head in the first round of the municipal elections of le Havre this Sunday, march 15, with 43.59% of the votes. However, the gap with the candidate that comes second is not so important that the Prime Minister would have hoped for. Jean-Paul Lecoq, candidate BIA, CPF and Generation.s, follows closely with 35,87% of the votes. These two candidates are the only ones to have obtained enough votes to go in for the second round. Arrived in third position, with 8,28% of the votes, the candidate eco-Alexis Deck has not passed the alliance with Jean-Paul Lecoq because of disagreements too deep.
Courted to lead the list of the majority in the capital, Edouard Philippe was eventually turned to the city of his heart, The Haven, where he was elected for the first time a city councillor in 2001 and where he was mayor in 2010, after the withdrawal of Antoine Rufenacht, his appointment to the government in 2017. And this campaign 2020 is double-edged : a bad result in the local elections in le Havre could deprive both Edouard Philippe of his city, but also of the prime minister, a Prime minister defeated in the local elections is no more, according to its own definition, “legitimate”.
But if, on paper, the battle of le Havre seemed complicated at the time of the first round, the situation has changed with the passage of the health crisis. According to a survey Odoxa published on 4 June, a majority of the French hope that Edouard Philippe remains Prime minister, even if they are also 60% want a re-shuffle. This surge in popularity could bring to the head of the government the tract sufficient to win, and regain his seat of mayor of le Havre at the end of his duties as Prime minister, in the days, weeks, or years to come.
Short biography of Edouard Philippe
Born on 28 November 1970, Edouard Philippe, aged 49, is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris in 1992 and then of the ENA (promotion Marc Bloch, 1995-1997), it was first campaigned in the socialist Party. In 2001, the young mandarin is closer to Antoine Rufenacht, mayor of le Havre from 1995 to 2010, and became director of campaign of Jacques Chirac in 2002. When the merger of the centre and the right, Edouard Philippe became director general of the UMP, under the aegis of Alain Juppé. It is from the mayor of Bordeaux that he will do his entire career before joining Matignon. With the result that we know.
