The EconomistFebruary 24th 2018 43For daily analysis and debate on Europe, visit
Economist.com/europeS
EVEN months aftertheir prime minister
was appointed in May 2017, fully 35% of
the French could not name him accurately
in a poll. Next to the hyper-visible Presi-
dent Emmanuel Macron, who hosts global
business chiefs at the Palace of Versailles
one week and is on the phone every other
to Donald Trump, the tall, bearded Edou-
ard Philippe cuts a discreet figure. So much
so that he is variously identified in polls as
Philippe Edouard, Gérard Philipe (a former
actor), or Louis Philippe (a former king).
Confusion about Mr Philippe’s name,
though, prompts a bigger question: what is
the point of him?
France is unusual in having a two-head-
ed executive, devised by Charles de Gaulle
in 1958 when the previous parliamentary
system had proved unstable. The Fifth Re-
public’s constitution established a particu-
larly strong executive presidency. But ac-
cording to precedent the president is meant
to stick to big visions and foreign affairs,
leaving the prime minister, whom he
names, to deal with the grind of daily
policymaking. When the president is an
energetic, sleeves-rolled-up sort, this divi-
sion of labour is hard to sustain.
In many ways, the link between Mr
Macron and Mr Philippe looks friction-
prone. Before the first round of the presi-
dential election in 2017, they had only met
three times. The young president was for-
merly a ministerin a Socialist government;
the sardonic prime ministerbelonged to“The main job for a French prime minis-
ter is not to upstage the president,” says
one observer wryly. Working for a head of
state nicknamed “Jupiter”, Mr Philippe
does not seem in danger of doing this. He
does none of the grand events. When Mr
Macron decided to hold a ceremonious
and filmed signing of the labour law, White
House-style, the prime minister was ab-
sent. “Basically, it’s a thankless job,” says
somebody close to Mr Philippe. Most
French prime ministers leave office
drained and politically weakened. Of the
22 politicians who have occupied the job
since 1958, only two—Georges Pompidou
and Jacques Chirac—have gone on to be-
come president, and neither did so imme-
diatelyafter leaving Matignon.
It may help their improbable bond that
Mr Philippe, his friends insist, does not cov-
et Mr Macron’s job. Evicted from his party
for jumping ship, he has no parliamentary
base of his own, and relies on Mr Macron’s
solid centristmajority. An amateur boxer,
Mr Philippe confessed to a “panicky fear”
when he realised he might be offered the
prime ministership. The pair are of the
same generation, Mr Philippe being seven
years older than his 40-year-old boss. Each
man was also formerly close to Michel Ro-
card, a centre-left Socialist ex-prime minis-
ter, whom Mr Philippe backed in his youth
before switching to the political right.
The real test of their tie, though, will be
over tricky legislation that is now looming,
particularly a new immigration bill that
was presented to cabinet this week. Many
of Mr Macron’s deputies are uneasy about
its harsher provisions. Asylum-agency offi-
cials have been on strike. Mr Philippe may
be about to learn the hard way that the real
function of a French prime minister is to let
the president take the credit when things
go well, and to deal with the trouble when
it all goes wrong. 7the centre-right Republicans. Mr Macron
has a reputation for fiddling with details. In
a political thriller he co-wrote, Mr Philippe
described Matignon, the prime minister’s
office, as “a form of hell”.
There have indeed been moments of
confusion. Last summer Mr Macron stole
the limelight by summoning lawmakers to
a joint sitting of both houses of parliament
at Versailles, the day before a major speech
by his prime minister. In that address, Mr
Philippe announced that some of Mr Mac-
ron’s promised taxcuts—notably in the
wealth tax and the council tax for modest
earners—would be postponed by a year.
Days later, after charges of backtracking,
Mr Macron decided otherwise.Against the odds
Yet, over time, the president and prime
minister seem to have found a way to
make their odd relationship work. On la-
bour reform, for example, Mr Macron laid
down the broad rules. Mr Philippe and his
labour ministerthen did the hard slog of
negotiations and arbitration, spending
their summer in some 100 meetings with
union leaders, before unveiling a new la-
bour law last year. On education reform,
Mr Macron defined the outline, leaving Mr
Philippe and his schools minister to hold
ongoing discussions with teachers. Three-
fifths of the French think the executive duo
have got the balance right, according to a
poll in December.FranceA form of hell
PARIS
The unrewarding life of a French prime ministerEurope
Also in this section44 Italy’s centre-right hopefuls
44 Redress for war crimes
45 Eco-activism in Russia
46 Charlemagne: A very European coup