Omnipresent in the media on the occasion of the release of his latest book, the former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe clarified his thoughts on Wednesday, particularly on the themes of school and Islam, and revealed a little more his ambition for 2027.
The presidential election is still far away, but he thinks about it and doesn’t hide it. “I have a fairly clear idea, yes, of how, when it comes to me, things could happen,” Edouard Philippe said on France Inter.
Favorite in the polls, he is today best placed to challenge Marine Le Pen, whose “victory is possible” in 2027, he emphasizes in a long interview with Le Monde.
Two interviews in the middle of a cleverly orchestrated political comeback, around the publication of his work “Des places qui dit” (JC Lattès), in bookstores on Wednesday. Autobiographical story which outlines the “directions” that the mayor of Le Havre wishes to give to the country, because “the life of a nation must be organized around where we want to go”.
Starting with school, an intimate subject for this son of teachers who knows that “it’s a tiring job”. To stop the “collapse” of the education system, he wants to “put the emphasis on small classes” and “assume that the goal of school is also excellence”.
Castigating the former socialist minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, who according to him “favored the private sector”, he intends to reconnect with “republican elitism” which “pulls everyone to the highest”. And regrets that the issue is “always approached from small angles” such as teachers’ salaries or uniforms. Even secularism, because “it would be ridiculous if we thought that the problem with school was the abaya”.
Islam, on the other hand, concerns him. Because this religion is “more and more practiced in France” and that, “like everywhere in the world”, it is partly “worked by obscurantist aspirations, which advocate a literal reading of the sacred text (and) a practice totally rigorous.”
A puritanism is “radically contrary to the way we envisage common life in our Republic”, and it creates a problem which the 1905 law “is perhaps not able to deal with”.
Despite the separation of churches and state, “the question of a specific organization of Islam will be raised”, predicts Mr. Philippe, anticipating a debate on “a form of concordat” while calling for “return to fundamentals of secularism” and to “fight fiercely to preserve the current framework”.
Message of firmness from a right-wing man who is “not afraid to express (his) positions, including when they are not popular”. As for retirement at 67, “because the reality, at some point, is there” and he “fears that it will unfortunately be necessary one day to return to the issue”.
As on immigration, also, to better give satisfaction to Gérald Darmanin, whose controversial bill “is a very good starting point” before “an intense debate” in Parliament, he said, praising ” the balance of the text” between “simplification”, “strengthening” and “integration”.
A point of view necessarily more nuanced than that of the Republicans, who reject the regularization of undocumented workers, contained in the draft government text.
Popular among right-wing voters, the founder of the Horizons party remains hated by his former political family, who do not forgive his rallying to Emmanuel Macron in 2017. “He is the heir” of the head of state, Eric says of him. Ciotti, when Olivier Marleix judges that he embodies “the worst of Macronism”.
The former Prime Minister, who will speak to his supporters in Angers on Friday, “takes full responsibility”: “I have close ties with the President of the Republic”, he admits, “I am not going to apologize for it “, but “I am not totally identical to him”. On arrival, “we’ll see what the French say, in any case I’m not going to change who I am.”
13/09/2023 12:39:53 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
