Macron, who seriously defeated and annoyed the French nationalist Marine Le Pen, is actually a man of the establishment right, the more or less socially liberal and pro-globalist, pro-EU right.
Emmanuel Macron picks centre-right Édouard Philippe as PM
France’s centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, has appointed a prime minister from the right to lead his bid for a parliamentary majority in June’s elections and push through his plans to loosen strict labour laws.
Édouard Philippe, 46, the mayor of the Normandy port town Le Havre, comes from Les Républicains, the party that was headed by Nicolas Sarkozy until last year and whose candidate, François Fillon, was knocked out in the first round of the presidential election.
Philippe supported Alain Juppé, the moderate, centre-right former prime minister, in the party’s presidential primary race last year.
His appointment is seen as a strategic move by the French president to destabilise the already divided French right and win over rightwing politicians to his La République en Marche (La REM) movement.
Macron, who served as economy minister under the Socialist former president François Hollande, has attracted dozens of centre-left MPs to his new movement and needed to reach out to the right.
The move was also calculated to lure parliamentary hopefuls from Les Républicains as a way of securing the majority he needs to enact his manifesto promises to provide more flexibility for business.
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