“Like many of you, I am very happy to have turned the page of 2020.” It is in these terms that Edouard Philippe expressed his wishes on January 1, in a very personal video message… After a year marked by the conflict over pensions, the Covid-19 and its ouster from Matignon, the former Prime Minister, mayor of Le Havre, has switched to a new life.
He curls a book with his friend, MEP Gilles Boyer.
His polls are in the sky.
As a consequence of its new status, its city of Seine-Maritime becomes a place of pilgrimage.
"Many ministers ask to see him," says one of his relatives.
After Olivier Véran, Clément Beaune and Franck Riester, it is precisely the turn of Prime Minister Jean Castex, flanked by three ministers, to stop there, this Friday, January 22, on the occasion of an interministerial committee on the sea. "Six months ago, you left me the keys of the Hôtel de Matignon to take over those of your town hall," the Prime Minister recalls during a speech at the National School of the Sea. I know the deep joy that was yours to find your Norman lands, your city and your dear fellow citizens ”.
He adds: "And the sea air", which is "a little different from the Parisian air".
"Very dear Edouard"
It is also on the quays of the industrial port that the two men meet in the early morning.
They meet again in an official context for the first time since the handover on July 3.
The Prime Minister and his "very dear Edouard" board the container ship "Jacques Saadé", a green-hulled juggernaut of the CMA CGM company, as tall as a 26-storey building.
They want to visit the largest model powered by liquefied natural gas.
"A calm sea has never made a good sailor": if I am to believe the adage of the people on board, today I find a great captain in Le Havre.
pic.twitter.com/0O8aW2G1FZ
- Jean Castex (@JeanCASTEX) January 22, 2021
On the catwalk, Edouard Philippe plays tourist guides.
"There is the lower town, there is the plateau," he said, pointing to the neighborhoods in the distance.
Photographers strafe the scene.
The cliché of their complicity is published on the Twitter accounts of the two protagonists.
"It's good to see this moment of gathering, in a good mood, even if the image has a big red side that stains", smiles a member of the government.
Jean Castex also publishes an English proverb: “A calm sea never makes a good sailor”.
A way of emphasizing the difficulty of the task.
But also its formative nature ...
"The coolness and clairvoyance" by Edouard Philippe
"Jean Castex came to Le Havre with the desire to show that there is continuity between the two Prime Ministers of the quinquennium, that he is his equal, that he will not apologize for being there", decrypts a ministerial adviser.
At one point, the captain of the ship offers to sit in the cockpit.
"Terrific", appreciates the Prime Minister, taking his place.
"Jean Castex faces the sea in heavy weather, he knows what his compass is, what his course is", comments his entourage.
Return to dry land.
During the interministerial council, Jean Castex welcomes the future merger of the ports of the Seine axis: Le Havre, Rouen, Paris.
It is the city of the Prime Minister who will inherit the seat of the new group - this was one of Edouard Philippe's requests to his successor at the time of the handover.
However, it is impossible to speak only of the sea, as people are concerned about the Covid-19 epidemic.
At the microphone, Jean Castex promises that "more than a million" people will be vaccinated at the end of the month.
He took the opportunity, in a new tribute, to praise "the courage, the coolness and the clairvoyance" of Edouard Philippe, who knew "to manage the first wave of this unexpected and violent pandemic which has shaken the world for a year now. ".
To each his own wave.
