Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet came out of her political retirement on Tuesday June 2 by announcing her support for Édouard Philippe for the next presidential election. A candidate who, according to the former Sarkozyst, “has this ability to bring people together”.
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet comes out of the shadows… and has chosen her candidate for 2027. The former minister under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, known under the nickname “NKM”, declared Tuesday June 2 to support the Horizons candidate Édouard Philippe at the next presidential election. “We are at a moment where we must not make a mistake. I will support Édouard Philippe,” declared the woman who ran for Paris town hall in 2014 at the microphone of France Inter during the morning show. After her defeat in the 2017 legislative elections, the former UMP minister left the political scene. Coming back after nine years of absence, the latter did not go through all the hassle to announce her support for the Horizons candidate.
Édouard Philippe: the candidate who unites?
“I think he has this ability to bring people together, to bring them together in calm, to bring them together in dialogue,” she believes. Currently mayor of Le Havre and former Prime Minister of Emmanuel Macron, Édouard Philippe is, like Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, from the Les Républicains group. “She is a woman of great political experience. She has completely left it 9 years ago, and returns with a new and very interesting experience, particularly on AI and defense. It’s extremely valuable,” explained Édouard Philippe’s entourage.
The president of Horizons has already registered the support of different political figures from the right and the center, at the risk of tightening the competition a little more with his main competitor, Gabriel Attal. He notably obtained the support of the president of the departmental council of Finistère, Maël de Calan. Without officially joining himthe former minister Jean-François Copé l’a qualifié de “better placed” to represent the right in the presidential election. Édouard Philippe has also appointed as co-campaign director Marie Guévenoux, former minister and ancient députée Renaissance.
A center-right candidate who seems to want to unite despite the legal investigation targeting him for suspicion of embezzlement of public funds, favoritism, illegal taking of interests and extortion in a matter linked to Le Havre. Conversely, his two main rivals in the right and center camp, Gabriel Attal and Bruno Retailleau, are currently struggling to display the same level of visible support.
The need for candidates who “hold their heads”
During his first meeting in Paris on Saturday May 30, few major figures of the macronie were present in the ranks of the Renaissance candidate, Gabriel Attal: neither Emmanuel Macron and even less Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu or the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet. As for the Republican candidate, who is organizing his first major meeting on June 20, Xavier Bertrand and Laurent Wauquiez have already stated that they will not respond present.
All of them had in the past supported or rallied behind Alain Juppé, including Édouard Philippe himself who had signed up as a lieutenant during the right-wing primary in 2016. According to Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, “political life French has been contaminated by a movement that comes from social networks, from the attention economy, from the click, you know, the dopamine shocks.”
“We are saturating our intellectual space, our energy, all our attention. And that spilled over into political life: we go from reaction to reaction. And you know what? Reaction is not action,” judges the former general secretary of the UMP, believing that “we need people who don’t go from reaction to reaction and who stay their course.” The one who was spokesperson for Nicolas Sarkozy’s lost campaign in 2012 took care to clarify the few doubts about her possible personal ambitions by affirming: “I am not a candidate for anything. HAS”
A figure of the right engaged against the extreme right
After spending five years within the Antin infrastructure and investment fund, the former minister of François Fillon, from 2009 to 2012, joined the CNTI last January, a research center dedicated to the links between information, technology and innovation, particularly in the sectors of artificial intelligence and media. At the same time, she developed investments in the tech and media sector with her brother Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet. A reappearance of a figure of the Republican right who resurfaces at a time which is not chosen by chance. Indeed, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet says she wants to “do what will be useful. Particularly on the subjects on which I have worked the most, such as artificial intelligence.
Always critical of Marine Le Pen’s party, at the time still called the National Front, the former UMP MP has not since changed her opinion on the subject. “I haven’t changed my mind. The National Rally comes from elsewhere, it is not the continuity of the right.” The latter even considers the nationalist party as a movement in a “world of brute force”, evoking Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, as well as the example of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
