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![Portrait of Édouard Philippe]()
Horizons
Centre
Édouard Philippe
Mayor of Le Havre, Prime Minister from 2017 to 2020, aged 55
Declared candidate since September 2024
7.3/10
Overall score
3rd out of 16
+Strengths
- Former Prime Minister with a statesman's stature
- Would beat Mélenchon in the run-off (61 to 39% in the YouGov poll)
- Rises to 17% when Gabriel Attal is not running
−Weaknesses
- Around 14%: closely followed, or even overtaken, by Mélenchon for second place
- Faces competition from Gabriel Attal in his own camp
- Loses to Marine Le Pen in the polls (44 to 56%)
In the polls
15.2% on average over the last 30 days, −2.6 pts in three months.
59 polls since 26 March 2025. All polls
Proposals
- Pensions
- Gradually raise the legal retirement age to 65 and the contribution period to 45 years, with a third of employees exempted.
- Work and purchasing power
- Exempt two hours of overtime a week from contributions (about €1,000 more a year on the minimum wage); cap unemployment benefits at 12 months for under-50s.
- Taxes and spending
- Replace only one civil servant in three who retire; a single family allowance of €350 a month from the first child; some twenty ordinances from July 2027.
- Immigration
- Halve legal immigration (well under 200,000 residence permits a year); a European list of safe countries whose nationals could no longer claim asylum.
- Europe and defence
- Reaffirmed support for Ukraine.
- Energy and climate
- A single climate-adaptation fund of €2 billion a year.
Sources: Euronews, 9 October 2026: his measures presented on France 2 ; Journal du Net, main measures.
Chances in our scenarios
| Scenario | Reaches the run-off | Wins the election |
|---|---|---|
| The current landscape | 24% | 8% |
| The centrist bloc behind Philippe | 43% | 14% |
| Right and centre united | 86% | 22% |
| The left united behind Glucksmann | 14% | 5% |
| Jordan Bardella instead of Marine Le Pen | 24% | 10% |
Profile
What the scores measure
- Experience
- Offices held, government roles, knowledge of the State
- Name recognition
- How well known they are to the public
- Communication
- Media skills, debating, social media presence
- Polls
- First-round voting intentions in October 2026, and their trend
- Reach
- Ability to win votes beyond their own camp in the run-off
- Party machine
- Party strength: activists, elected officials, funding