Marseille: Édouard Philippe at an "inter-regional" meeting to continue his presidential campaign

Édouard Philippe is holding a third "inter-regional meeting" in Marseille, the first of his presidential election campaign events, this Saturday, May 17.

The former Prime Minister of Emmanuel Macron (2017-2020), founder and president of the Horizons party (2021), invites his supporters - more than 1,700 registered - to Parc Chanot, near the Vélodrome stadium.

The meeting, originally scheduled for Sunday, was brought forward several weeks ago as his former party, Les Républicains (LR), elected its president this weekend, between Bruno Retailleau, who was deemed compatible, and a much more closed-minded Laurent Wauquiez.

On Sunday evening, the results of the LR Congress will be announced, which has pitted Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau against the group's president in the National Assembly, Laurent Wauquiez, in recent months.

Édouard Philippe was also invited to the debates of this internal LR campaign, Mr. Wauquiez suspecting Mr. Retailleau of considering an alliance to his advantage. "Many of Bruno Retailleau's supporters have already begun to explain that we would have to drown ourselves in a central bloc where we would be alongside left-wing Macronists and where, in the end, we would no longer have our identity. I don't want that. So, my duo will not be with Édouard Philippe" but "with Bruno Retailleau," Mr. Wauquiez declared this week.

Laurent Wauquiez "wants the purity of the right, I want to unite, and the voters want the country to come before the party. I haven't met anyone on the ground telling me that we should divide," retorted Edouard Philippe in Le Parisien .