Paris – French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Friday announced a mayoral run in local elections, as President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist LREM party faces a difficult campaign.
Philippe told local newspaper Paris-Normandie that he will run again for his old job as mayor of the port city of Le Havre in the elections,which is due to take place in two rounds on March 15 and March 22.
Macron’s party was formed in 2016, two years after the last nationwide local elections. It needs to build up a local base, but faces the prospect of winning in few, if any, big cities.
Philippe a centre-right politician who was mayor of Le Havre from 2010 until Macron chose him as premier in 2017, said he did not plan to take up the position of mayor immediately if he won.
“For the moment, I am fulfilling the mission that the president gave me as best I can,’’ he told the newspaper.
But as soon as that was over, he added “my ambition is to become mayor of Le Havre again’’.
Philippe had last year been mooted as a possible mayoral candidate for Paris, the biggest prize in the March polls.
Macron confidant Benjamin Griveaux is now running in the capital, but he is trailing Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo and conservative candidate Rachida Dati in the latest opinion polls.
Another LREM lawmaker, star mathematician Cedric Villani, is running a dissident campaign in the capital, despite an appeal from Macron in person for him to step down and back Griveaux.
France’s Council of State meanwhile suspended several provisions in a circular governing the election issued by Interior Minister Christophe Castaner.
Castaner had instructed regional administrators not to attribute any political label to candidates in towns with a population of less than 9,000.
That would mean that overall national tallies of the results would exclude the ballots cast by almost half the electorate, the council’s administrative judges for urgent issues ruled.
The judges also suspended a rule that would have allowed candidates to be categorised as various centrists if they were backed by Macron’s party or allies, without the need for them to be formally adopted as the party’s candidates.
(dpa/NAN)
