La Ciotat (AFP) – In La Ciotat, around 300 people gathered on Saturday to listen to Édouard Philippe, who intends to increase the number of these public meetings with room interaction. The first question arises: since you refuse the primary, what is your strategy? “Let the campaign prosper,” replies the Horizons presidential candidate.

Published on: 07/11/2026 - 18:14

Traveling in the South-East since Thursday - in Salon-de-Provence, Aix, Marseille, Arles, La Ciotat, Draguignan and Saint-Raphaël - Édouard Philippe launched his "grand tour": trips with small public meetings in all regions between now and the end of the year. He will notably travel to Chartres on Monday, Toulouse next week and to Rillieux-la-Pape (Rhône) on November 19.

This week, the former Prime Minister, falling significantly in the polls, repeated his opposition to the primary long demanded by the mayor of Cannes David Lisnard (Nouvelle Energie), taken up on his own by Gabriel Attal (Renaissance) and now defended by the Republican (LR) candidate Bruno Retailleau. There is no question for the mayor of Le Havre to participate in what he calls an “operation of division”. Nor even to debate with its competitors.

But if "in February" he considers he has no chance, he will not add "one more application". “I would like others to make the same commitment,” told La Provence the man who has been considering his candidacy since leaving Matignon in 2020, and declared it in 2024.

In the Paul Éluard room in La Ciotat, the mayor of Le Havre insists: "I think that political leaders will take their responsibilities because no one will want to take responsibility for prohibiting the right and the center from being in the second round." And the French "will turn, not necessarily towards the candidate with whom they agree the most, but towards the candidate who seems to them best able" to qualify.

In passing, Édouard Philippe reaffirms his political space: "I don't want to have the right only. I don't want to have the right and the left. I want to bring together the right and the center. And I certainly don't want to bring together the right and the extreme right. Ever." Message transmitted to Gabriel Attal, who wants to "continue macronism", and to David Lisnard, whose position is considered ambiguous vis-à-vis the RN and its satellites.

Macron? "I'm not the same"

In this meeting, the former Prime Minister sets out his political priorities: restoring "order in the streets", "order in the accounts", reforming justice, "weak link in the criminal chain", "saving our education system", "transforming the financing of our social model".

While Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is now ahead of him in the polls, presents his program on Saturday, Douard Philippe attacks him on his "communitarian vision" and his "managed economy" projects.

To a young woman who asked him what to say to those who see in a Philippe presidency "a pale reproduction of Macron's mandates", the former Prime Minister replied: "I am not the same." He defends his own record at Matignon (2017-2020) before regretting “that the initial promise” of President Macron was “lost in limbo”.

In La Ciotat, in the morning, the candidate had surveyed the city, accompanied by a certain number of right-wing elected officials from the region, including mayor Alexandre Doriol, Christian Estrosi and the leader of the Marseille municipal opposition Romain Simmarano, who is joining his campaign and will not take his card back to Renaissance.

While Édouard Philippe speaks to the press, a cyclist shouts "racist" at him. His evocation of an “over-representation” of youth “from immigration” in the looting of October 17 left its mark.

“They are French” with “the same rights and the same duties”, he explains in a meeting, before attacking Jean-Luc Mélenchon: “Who, in the public debate, reintroduced or introduced (...) the concept of racialized?” “Who played for several months, several years on words, on concepts, on things which in our political history (...) are fundamentally anti-Semitism?” The perilous art of targeting your adversaries and ignoring your competitors.

© 2026 AFP

The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.