“The man who wants to retire at 67.” The 2027 presidential campaign has not started, but the National Rally has already identified an angle of attack against Edouard Philippe. The far-right formation portrays the former Prime Minister as an apostle of austerity, after ambiguous remarks made in the fall of 2022 on government reform. These are the roles distributed. To Marine Le Pen, the defense of the people and those without rank. The mayor of Le Havre, the accountant costume ready to inflict an austerity cure on the French. Empathy versus coldness.
Edouard Philippe could cry lies. Explain how his words were distorted by the RN. But no. He simply points out that other European countries have pushed back the legal age of departure to 65, 66 or 67 years. This ambiguity suits the positioning of the boss of Horizons. The man makes control of public finances a national priority. In an interview with Opinion, he calls for making the debt a “political obsession”, in the name of preserving “French sovereignty”. And he is satisfied: his time at Matignon resulted in “historic control of public spending”, far from the 50 billion deficit accumulated – excluding Covid – since 2020.
Gravity tinged with self-satisfaction. Bruno Le Maire adopts the same rhetoric as his rival. Restore the deficit to less than 3% in 2027? “I did it between 2017 and 2019. I know how to go about it,” confides the Minister of the Economy to Parisian. So much for pride. He also presents the country’s debt reduction as a political matrix. The tenant of Bercy announced 10 billion euros in savings due to a forecast of reduced growth, before a quest for an additional 20 billion in 2025.
Bruno Le Maire does not have the shameful turn of the screw. He even claims it: 23 pages of his program book The French Way (Flammarion) are devoted to debt reduction. He develops the “national interest” of restoring accounts and advocates a reduction in public spending. Thus, the minister questions the cost of our social model and pleads for a replacement of the welfare state with the “protective state”. BLM minister or author, same fight. “He wants to show what good management of public funds is and draw the figure of a statesman,” notes Renaissance MP Charles Sitzenstuhl, close to the minister.
“The Mayor does judo with his own constraints”
A statesman who “takes responsibility”, as the established formula requires. Like when he announced on TF1 an increase in electricity prices, an anecdote proudly recounted in his book. In the majority, we judge above all that Bruno Le Maire adapts to the circumstances. Even if it means announcing bad news, you might as well drape it in political courage. “The risk for him is to go from minister of Covid to father of austerity. His parachute is this image of a political figure who tells the truth. He does judo with his own constraints,” notes a former minister.
Everyone has their own score. The mayor of Le Havre, above, takes a distant look at government action since his departure from Matignon. Bruno Le Maire, with his hands dirty, fights against any lawsuit in inaction. “If we arrive with degraded accounts in 2026, this will not be a guarantee of seriousness for any majority candidate,” explains a close friend.
The self-portrait painted by Edouard Philippe and Bruno Le Maire is similar: a serious man, determined to deliver a speech of truth to a France ready to hear it. “Edouard’s popularity is not anchored because of comments that people are happy to hear, slips a person close to Le Havre. But because they know that someone has to stick to it, like during confinement.” The two men, who saw each other on February 19, are finally careful not to let themselves be trapped in the gray technocrat costume. None claims the concept of “austerity” or “rigor”, terms with a heavy symbolic charge. We prefer to speak of “serious”. This notion refers to “common sense” and a de-ideologized conception of the debate. So consensual.
Everyone seeks above all to give political meaning to debt reduction. In his book, Bruno Le Maire describes it as the key to “our independence” and our ability to “mobilize public funds” in the event of a crisis. “It is not an end in itself, or a presidential program, insists those around him. It is a means of freeing up room for maneuver to invest.” Edouard Philippe denies being an “accountant” and poses as the guarantor of French independence.
Public finances, a real right-wing territory. This is good, this duo has never denied this ideological connection. Debt is their old common obsession. During the 2016 primary, Bruno Le Maire promised to make 80 to 90 billion in savings, via the elimination of 500,000 civil servant positions. Edouard Philippe denounced “the French addiction to public spending” during his general policy declaration in July 2017. The former head of government did not appreciate seeing Emmanuel Macron take out the checkbook occasion of the yellow vest crisis. “Order in the accounts. Order in the streets”: the mantra of the Horizons party reaffirms this ambition.
“Philippe did not wait for the Mayor”
In small steps, a rivalry is emerging over the authorship of this political offer. Bruno Le Maire privately judges that he makes stronger comments on the management of public accounts than his competitor. Question of character. Friends from Le Havre prefer to laugh at this sudden sensitivity of the boss of Bercy to the deterioration of public accounts. “The difference between the two? Philippe has always been consistent on this subject,” jokes one of them. A minister scathes: “Philippe did not wait for Le Maire to boast of saving money to push the subject.”
In 2022, remote spat. In the Assembly, Horizons deputies adopt an amendment of 120 million euros aimed at offsetting the additional cost for the departments of the increase in the RSA. Bruno Le Maire, angrily returned: “I am stunned to see parliamentarians who, on television sets during interviews, only have the word restoration of public finances on their lips and who undertake such public expenditure. “
The political twinship is obvious, the common strategy. But for what political gain? No candidate in the presidential election has won with a speech centered around debt reduction. François Bayrou failed in third place in 2007, like François Fillon ten years later. Edouard Philippe and Bruno Le Maire, however, do not adopt the martial rhetoric of the former UMP candidate, made up of disproportionate numerical ambitions. They know the constraints of power, Fillon-style liberalism no longer has good press.
To gain the support of a country, more will be needed. If they get started, the two friends will have to seduce as well as reassure. A Renaissance executive summarizes: “Campaigning solely on the theme of seriousness is a bit short. We need politically to dream and have perspectives of life change.” Embarking the French while maintaining this requirement of sobriety: a challenge for the two fraternal twins of Macronie.
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