The Horizons candidate for the presidential election, Édouard Philippe, confirmed on Sunday his refusal to participate in a possible primary of the right and the center. The idea of a “democratic primary” was proposed by his competitor Gabriel Attal with the aim, according to him, of preventing the second round between LFI and the RN.
Published on: 01/11/2026 - 9:35 p.m. Modified on: 02/11/2026 - 07:48
“I don’t believe this primary will take place.” Édouard Philippe reaffirmed, Sunday November 1, on TF1, his opposition to the idea of a primary to nominate a single candidate from the right and the center for the presidential election, four days after the proposal launched by his competitor Gabriel Attal to organize a "democratic primary".
“I think that this primary is a primary of division and a primary of confusion,” declared the mayor of Le Havre, best placed in the polls on the right and in the center, but losing ground in recent weeks. According to him, the candidates in this political space will have to take their "responsibilities" to decide between themselves in February.
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“It’s a primary of division, because the very principle of a primary is to emphasize the differences between the candidates. But I think that we have to create commonality much more than to emphasize our divisions,” declared the former Prime Minister of Emmanuel Macron, president of the center-right Horizons party.
Departure in February
"And then it's a primary of confusion" because it proposes to bring together "people who are the continuators of macronism for Gabriel Attal and others who extend their hand to the union of the rights", he said in reference to the candidate of the liberal right David Lisnard, author of a recent breakthrough in the polls and who poses as a very serious rival to the president of the Republicans, Bruno Retailleau.
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The mayor of Cannes was particularly attacked during the weekend by figures from the center who considered him insufficiently clear in his refusal of an alliance with the National Rally. What he defended again on Sunday, assuring that he did not intend to govern “neither with the Macronists nor with the RN”.
For Édouard Philippe, the decision between the different candidates from the right and the center should not take place before February. “In February, everyone will take their responsibilities, I am used to taking mine,” he added, seeming to suggest that the least well placed candidates will then have to withdraw.
With AFP
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