Philippe looks primed to come out the other end of this make-or-break moment stronger. Building momentum now could help separate Philippe from the rest of a very crowded field of candidates in the race for the Elysée, though there’s still more than a year to go.
“Everything sort of starts today,” Nathalie Loiseau, a MEP from Philippe’s Horizons party and one of its heavyweights, told POLITICO. “There are reasons to hope.”
Philippe, who was the first of the center-right contenders to declare his presidential bid, is already rolling out campaign events, with April 12 bookmarked for a large-scale rally in Paris, according to two party officials — though Loiseau declined to confirm the event.
“Le Havre’s people know that there is reason for hope when all people of good will come together … and reject the extremes and their simplistic solutions,” Philippe said in his victory speech Sunday from Le Havre.
The politician’s strong performance in the first round and his comfortable win in the runoff drew a sigh of relief from his allies on Sunday — and led some of his most prominent rivals to publicly acknowledge his front-runner status.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, himself a presidential hopeful, called on Philippe to unite centrists behind him.