To widen appeal, Macron appoints centre-right PM

Paris, May 15 

France’s new President Emmanuel Macron named Edouard Philippe, a little-known centre-right mayor, as the Prime Minister today, in his first major decision since taking power on a promise to lead a French “renaissance”.

Philippe, a 46-year-old MP and mayor of the northern port of Le Havre, comes from the moderate wing of the rightwing Republicans party and is seen as a pragmatist.

His appointment was seen as a strategic move by 39-year-old Macron, a former minister in the outgoing Socialist government who is trying to woo modernisers of all stripes to his new centrist party, La Republique en Marche (Republic on the Move, REM).

France’s youngest ever President has already attracted dozens of Socialist MPs to his side, triggering a major realignment in French politics that has left the traditional parties floundering.

Like Macron, Philippe is a product of France’s elite ENA college for senior public servants and worked for a while in the private sector.

Relatively unknown outside his Le Havre fiefdom, he has already crossed the floor once in his career, defecting from the Socialists to the Republicans as a young politician. One of Macron’s aides welcomed his appointment as “a good move”, telling AFP it would help him “break the right”.

Taking office yesterday, the former investment banker who trounced far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the May 7 presidential run-off, said he aimed to restore France’s shattered self-confidence. The fervently pro-European Macron also said he would help rebuild the flagging European Union.

Like Macron, France’s new prime minister has little truck with the entrenched left-right divide. After campaigning for Socialist prime minister Michel Rocard as a youth, he switched to the right, becoming a close ally of centre-right former prime minister Alain Juppe. — AFP