At a meeting in Marseille, Édouard Philippe poses as an alternative... to the right

It's not just Bruno Retailleau and Laurent Wauquiez who are vying for the leading role on the right. There's also Édouard Philippe. In the middle of the Republicans' congress , the former Prime Minister paid tribute to his former party by holding a rally in Marseille on Saturday, May 17.

This is an opportunity for the man who claims to want to "be president of the Republic" to chart his course and send messages. Laurent Wauquiez has been accused of "small-time Trumpism by dreaming of reviving the penal colony," as well as sinking into "populist nonsense that begins as a farce and ends in tragedy."

Bruno Retailleau , who considers that the rule of law is " neither intangible nor sacred " , also took a hit, with Édouard Philippe stating that "being a republican, in the noble sense of the term, means defending the rule of law, fighting those who want to sit on it" .

More broadly, Marine Le Pen was also targeted, with the mayor of Le Havre criticising the RN MP's reaction when she was sentenced, at first instance , to a penalty of ineligibility: "The law is the law. If it is badly made, it must be changed, but not the judges who apply it."

While he did offer a few digs, Édouard Philippe didn't make them the backbone of his speech, seeking instead to illustrate his vision of the Republic. Some differences could be read between the lines. Thus, he immediately honored the memory of two Marseille resistance fighters when he spoke.

A communist, Raymonde Tillon, and a Gaullist, Émile Muselier, when, a few days ago, Laurent Wauquiez said these words: "In the legislative elections at home, Édouard Philippe called for a vote for the PCF to block the RN. That's absolutely not what I would do."

And while there was no substantive debate, in the end, between Wauquiez and Retailleau, the president of Horizons came to show that there were other lines on the right. For example, by paying tribute to immigrants who arrived in Marseille, such as Albert Cohen and Missak Manouchian . By stating that "the discrimination suffered by our fellow citizens is an insult to our Republic" and even by evoking "the injustice experienced by the one who works hard and who sees her boss earn a hundred times more than her."

But, because he is indeed right-wing, Édouard Philippe has nonetheless nurtured certain fantasies, castigating "the injustice experienced by those who work hard to earn the minimum wage, and who do not understand why their neighbor, without really working, earns almost as much as them" , before validating the theory of "savagery" while estimating that "part of the violence expressed in our society is linked to immigration" .

Defending the expulsion of any foreigner who is not "irreproachable" , the candidate for 2027 pleads for a return of double punishment, the abolition of the sentencing judge and "the immediate confinement of offenders, including those serving very short sentences, from the first offence, in short-term establishments" . He also calls for a review of the training of magistrates, which he considers too biased. To conclude, he attacked personalized housing assistance (APL) and the social model, before ending on a Sarkozy-esque note, taking up the leitmotif of "working more to earn more" .