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Edouard Philippe tilts right to combat far right in French presidential race France’s former PM is popular, but he faces numerous challenges to prevent Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella from winning the Élysée. By CLEA CAULCUTTin REIMS, France Photo-illustration by Júlia Vadler/POLITICO via Getty Images Former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe believes it’s France’s mainstream conservative voters who will propel him to the presidency in a showdown with the far right next year. Philippe, a one-time ally of centrist President Emmanuel Macron, held onto his job as mayor of the gritty Normandy port city of Le Havre in a tight municipal election in March, when he defeated a strong challenge from the Communists. That victory boosted Philippe’s credentials as the best-placed candidate to face off against either Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella from the far-right National Rally next year in an election that threatens to send shockwaves through the EU and NATO. The only question was when Philippe would make his move for the Elysée. He finally launched his campaign at a rally of his Horizons party last week, in the northeastern city of Reims in Champagne country, and made clear his plan was not to style himself as a universally appealing centrist alternative to the far right, but to lead a campaign with a conspicuous right-wing slant. Few doubt that Philippe could act as unifying candidate in the second-round in 2027 but his biggest strategic concern is that he will need to get there first. The appeal to conservatives is an attempt to ensure that he has a core base that will mobilize for him in the first round. “I know where I came from: from the right,” he told more than 800 party delegates, stressing his origins in the conservative political family that gave France presidents such as Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac. “I know who I am: at the head of a rightwing party.” During his hour-long speech, he leaned into several conservative talking points: slashing red tape, cutting corporate turnover tax and cracking down on drug trafficking. Rivals on the right But will the right-wing positioning work? The immediate danger is that other center-right figures such as Bruno Retailleau, leader of the conservative Les Républicains, and another former prime minister, Gabriel Attal, look set to encroach on his political turf with their own candidacies. Retailleau, to Philippe’s right, is leading a hardline campaign and promising to slash immigration, even if that means changing the French constitution. To his left, Attal is pursuing an aggressive media strategy with interviews and snappy videos, and, according to several recent polls, is catching up with Philippe. Then, Philippe faces the problem that he is moderately liked by everybody, but loved by no one, which partly explains why he wants to put a clear conservative stamp on his campaign. Despite promising a “massively optimistic” vision for France, he is conspicuously avoiding details on explosive issue such as pensions and immigration. For now, however, the political tide is with him. With mainstream centrist parties in disarray, Philippe is the candidate seen as having built the strongest bond with the French electorate after steering them through the trauma of the Covid pandemic. Edouard Philippe addresses senior officials at a rally in Reims on May 10, 2026. | Martin Bureau/AFP via Getty Images Despite that, a second-round against the far right would probably be nailbitingly close. A poll by Elabe at the end of March on potential second-round outcomes in 2027 predicted Philippe could beat Le Pen by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent and Bardella by 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent. Philippe’s supporters insist there is a compelling electoral logic not to lay out too many policy priorities too early. “There’s one year to go before the presidential election, we can’t unveil everything,” said the Mayor of Reims Arnaud Robinet. “Ideas don’t stick in the political debate for more than two or three months, the French will already have forgotten several times by the election.” Critics accuse Philippe of an excessive caution that may count against him. “He knows very well that peeling away ambiguity means taking a risk,” said a former centrist minister. “Right now, it’s difficult to see what his project is.” Avoiding the same mistakes There’s also an ominous shadow from recent electoral history hanging over Philippe’s presidential ambitions: the memory of his mentor, Alain Juppé, another conservative former prime minister who was widely tipped to become the president in 2017. Philippe was Juppé’s spokesperson during that ill-fated campaign, and watched first-hand his humiliation when he was unexpectedly beaten by a hardline rival in a party primary in 2016. “They [Juppé and Philippe] are the same: very intelligent, brilliant, technocratic statesmen. Philippe is scarred by the experience … but he has learned from it,” said a conservative political adviser involved in the Juppé campaign, who like others cited in this piece was granted anonymity to talk candidly on party thinking. Much like Juppé, Philippe enjoys a broad appeal rather than inspiring deep partisan enthusiasm. But in France, it sometimes doesn’t pay to be too much of a consensual unifier. “Popularity doesn’t necessarily translate into votes … it helps to be divisive,” said Frédéric Dabi, a pollster with the IFOP institute. He recalled controversial but successful politicians such as former President Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-left candidate for next year’s race. Philippe is, however, buoyed by his competent handling of the pandemic. “I’m struck by the fact that, six years later, he still inspires such trust among the French,” said Dabi. Philippe has consistently been in the top five of IFOP’s ranking of the most popular political figures. Alain Juppé is pictured during a ceremony in Paris on Sept. 24, 2025. | Magali Cohen/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images Determined not to make the same mistakes as Juppé, Philippe is anchoring his campaign firmly on the right and cultivating a grassroots network of party supporters. “Alain Juppé’s mistake is that he didn’t speak to his voters enough before the first round [of voting],” said Mayor of Reims Robinet. “But we are proud to be a right-wing party.” Philippe has cultivated a deliberately low-key, authentic image: a steady hand capable of steering France through global storms. He rarely posts online, doesn’t have a TikTok account, and has been quietly touring the country away from television cameras. “Edouard is someone who hold himself upright, wears a tie, speaks seriously but has a good dose of humor,” said a close friend of the candidate, who was granted anonymity to protect relationships. “He’s deeply reasonable, but reasonable doesn’t mean boring.” Still, in an era dominated by viral clips and bombastic personalities, his restraint is counter-intuitive. In the rival camp, Bardella is flooding the media landscape with rallies, TikTok videos and carefully curated glimpses of his romance with a royal heiress. The far right has already started mocking Philippe’s branding. Bardella dismissed his campaign as harking back to 1970s, while Frédéric Falcon, a lawmaker from the far-right National Rally, wrote that he was peddling “old-fashioned ideas.” On stage on Sunday, Philippe claimed he would take lessons from nobody. “Some say I’m not on TikTok enough, but I’m not sure that’s the only way to talk to the young,” he said. Elusive unity On stage in Reims, Philippe again hinted at a “massive” campaign platform that would unite voters, and particularly on the right, beyond his own Horizons party. He announced a broad consultation with French companies to identify rules and regulation that need cutting, to help French entrepreneurs “go faster.” “We’re not going to simplify, we are going to eliminate” regulation, he said. He added he would start talks with trade unions to discuss his plans to reform French state pensions, possibly the most incendiary topic on the campaign trail. He also pledged he would lead a pro-business “supply-side” economic policy and lead a major push to restore order and security in France. Philippe is cheered as he arrives at a rally in Reims on May 10, 2026. Martin Bureau/AFP via Getty Images But it won’t be an easy task to strike an alliance with Retailleau, who, according to party insiders, privately says he doesn’t believe Philippe has “political capital” thanks to public hostility towards his former boss, Macron. Instead, Retailleau believes he will eventually “overtake him in the polls.” Retailleau has instead embraced a more hardline brand of conservatism, even taking a leaf out of the far-right playbook and calling for France to ignore European legislation on immigration. With Attal, talks may be more straightforward. The official presidential candidate of Macron’s liberal Renaissance party has said publicly he would reach an agreement with Philippe on who would run early 2027, only a couple of months before the election in the spring. But according to Philippe’s supporters, that’s already too late. “If it drags on, it’ll be harder to merge rival teams. There’ll be more and more antagonism in the campaign,” said a Horizons lawmaker. Philippe is already engaged in talks with several politicians from Les Républicains figures, the same lawmaker said. But he has to tread carefully, and avoid doing anything would jeopardize his broader popularity, in particular with the moderate left whom he will need to beat Bardella and Le Pen. “A ticket with Retailleau would alienate voters,” said another Horizons lawmaker. Sofiane Zaizoune contributed to this report.

LÜBECK, Germany — The police and customs officers had been waiting for hours. Parked outside the Radisson Blu Senator Hotel in the northern German city of Lübeck, they sat in silence, engines off, watching the entrance.  Inside, Nikita S. — a 39-year-old businessman they suspected of running a smuggling operation supplying the Russian military industry with European technology — was enjoying what would be his last night of freedom. Shortly after 6 a.m., the officers moved in. Nikita S. was arrested. His companion, identified in investigative files as Olga S., was briefly detained. Within hours, authorities were seizing documents they believed exposed a sophisticated system that violated Germany’s Foreign Trade Act by bypassing Western sanctions and moving dual-use technology into Russia, where it could be used by the Kremlin for its war against Ukraine. The arrest was the culmination of a four-year investigation into how Nikita S. allegedly turned a Lübeck-based trading company into a Moscow-controlled procurement operation. The material seized that morning forms part of a wider case file obtained and reviewed by BILD — which, like POLITICO, is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. The case exposes a persistent weakness in Western sanctions: Critical components can still be bought in Europe, hidden behind routine paperwork, and rerouted through other countries before reaching Russian end users. Lawyers representing Nikita S., who is in custody while prosecutors gather evidence for an indictment, did not respond to a request for comment. The Foreign Trade Act foresees prison sentences of up to 10 years for serious offenses. (German privacy law restricts the ability of journalists and the authorities to disclose the identities of suspects.) Shell game According to the investigative file produced by the German prosecutor’s office, Nikita S. stood at the center of a system that began as a conventional trading business and, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, became what investigators suspect was a European procurement arm for Moscow. On paper, the operation revolved around Global Trade, a mid-sized trading company based in Lübeck. Before the war, the company exported directly to Russia. But after Western sanctions tightened, the files show, its business model changed. Direct shipments were replaced by a more elaborate structure designed to disguise the Russian end users. At the top of the structure, according to the investigative file, was a Russian company known as Kolovrat, which also operated under the name Siderius. The company has been sanctioned by the U.S. for operating in Russia’s manufacturing sector. In the files, German investigators describe it as more than a customer: They allege it was the operational core of a procurement network supplying Russian industry, including entities linked to the defense industry. Nikita S. became managing director of Global Trade at the end of March 2022, weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Investigators describe him as the “binding link” between the German company and its Russian controllers. According to the files, he also worked directly for Kolovrat in Moscow, a dual role that allowed him to coordinate orders, payments and shipments while preserving the appearance of a legitimate European business.  The files suggest that the Russian side was not merely directing Global Trade from afar. Kolovrat employees appear to have logged into Global Trade email accounts and posed as German staff, using aliases to contact suppliers, request quotes and place orders across Europe. To suppliers, the transactions appeared to come from a German company. According to the files, Moscow was effectively operating the business from inside. The goods were often mundane on paper. According to customs records and intelligence reports contained in the files, they included microcontrollers, electronic components, sensors, converters, ball bearings, mechanical parts, oscilloscopes and other measurement equipment. Individually, many might not have raised suspicion. But in the files, investigators say many were dual-use goods — products with civilian applications that can also be used in military systems. In several cases, the files say, shipments were traced to Russian end users linked to defense or nuclear research.  Foreign affairs As Western sanctions made direct exports to Russia more difficult, the paper trail shows how the network started routing shipments through other countries, often Turkey, before they were forwarded to Russia. According to the files, the gap between export from the EU and import into Russia was often just five to 10 days. A Turkish company, MR Global, is suspected of playing a central role as the formal consignee while functioning in practice as a transit hub. German front companies also helped obscure the operation. One, ER Industriebedarf GmbH, was run on paper by Eugen R., a Russian national who spoke poor German. Another, Amtech Solutions, was founded in May 2025 by Daniel A. at the instruction of Nikita S. In the files, the investigators say they believe it was intended for future operations. Some of the companies had no real staff; others shared offices or warehouse space with Global Trade. The internal communications cited in the files suggest the deception had become routine. In one exchange, Nikita S. reminded an associate: “Make it look clean. No Russian reference anywhere.” In another, a logistics instruction read: “Remove all documents from the boxes before shipment.” A third message, discussing routing, said: “We need a different consignee — Turkey works.”  In the files, investigators say the system depended on a wider cast: logistics staff who handled shipments and paperwork, accountants who processed payments and prepared invoices, and sales managers who sourced suppliers across Europe. Some worked from Germany, others from Russia. Investigators believe several knew exactly where the goods were going. One message put it plainly: “The goods are needed in a sanctioned country.”  The scale was recorded in the network’s own documents. A spreadsheet titled “Nikita’s order list” tracked thousands of transactions from request to delivery, listing order numbers, products, prices and delivery status. Prosecutors believe the operation moved roughly 16,000 shipments worth more than €30 million, Ines Peterson, spokesperson for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, told BILD. The case files also point to Olga S., a Moscow-based associate of Nikita S., as closely embedded in the network. According to the files, she used the alias “helga.berezh@gmail.com” to receive photos of goods and delivery notes from Nikita S.’ Global Trade account, often tagged with internal tracking numbers. Chats in the files also reveal a romantic relationship between Nikita S. and Olga S., with the two exchanging intimate messages, including at least one explicit photo. Despite what investigators describe as her proximity to the operation, she is being treated in the case as a witness. No arrest warrant has been issued against her.  Lawyers for Eugen R. and Daniel A. also did not respond. Contacted, Olga S. blocked the reporter on Telegram. Global Trade, Kolovrat, MR Global, ER Industriebedarf and Amtech Solutions did not reply to requests for comment. Inside job For years, the network operated largely undetected. Then Germany’s foreign intelligence service, known as the BND, penetrated it.  According to the investigative files, the BND gained access to internal material from Kolovrat, the Russian company prosecutors say controlled the procurement operation from Moscow. The source of the information is not identified in the files, and the precise method of access is not described. But the material included orders, invoices and correspondence — giving German authorities a rare view of the alleged supply chain from the inside.  That intelligence allowed investigators to follow transactions and reconstruct them. In one case, they traced goods ordered through Global Trade in Germany, paid for through intermediaries, shipped to Turkey and then delivered into Russia. In another, internal documents showed goods arriving at VNIIA, the All-Russian Institute of Automatics, a research institute linked to Russia’s nuclear weapons program.  The communications were often terse. “Send confirmation when goods arrive,” read one message cited in the files. “Payment split — rest after delivery,” read another. A third instructed: “Use the same reference number.” Investigators say those messages matched financial transfers, customs records and Russian import data.  But intelligence alone was not enough. Because BND material cannot automatically be used in criminal proceedings, the agency formally released its findings to prosecutors and customs investigators, according to the files. That step allowed authorities to begin building a criminal case. They then began matching European export records with Russian import records, identifying identical goods on both sides of the route. They tracked payments through intermediary companies. They mapped the roles of Global Trade, Kolovrat, Turkish transit firms and German front companies. And they monitored the movements of Nikita S. between Moscow and Germany.  The surveillance showed that Nikita S. spent little time in Lübeck, investigators say, often staying in hotels during short trips to Germany. When he returned in early 2026, authorities decided to move. They followed him to the Radisson Blu Senator Hotel in Lübeck. The operation unfolded quickly. Nikita S. was detained outside the hotel. Within hours, searches were carried out at multiple locations linked to the network. The objective was clear: secure the evidence behind a system that had operated largely in the shadows. Several suspects are now in custody while the authorities gather evidence with which to charge them, including Nikita S., Eugen R., Daniel A. and a man named Boris M., who prosecutors believe is a key figure in the case. Although Boris M. was formally replaced as managing director of Global Trade in 2022, investigators say in the files that he remained involved in daily operations, held broad power of attorney and continued to appear as a contact in customs records. In the files, prosecutors allege systematic violations of export controls, large-scale sanctions evasion, and participation in a criminal network.  A lawyer for Boris M. did not reply to a request for comment. The files suggest this was not an isolated scheme — but part of a broader system designed to keep critical technology flowing into Russia despite Western sanctions. In one BND assessment cited in the records, the agency said another Russian company, Rokem Services, had sought to obtain sanctioned equipment from a German firm through intermediaries including Global Trade, a Turkish public body and Kolovrat.  “The equipment is presumed to be accessories for seawater desalination plants, which can also be utilized for military purposes, particularly in nuclear-powered submarines,” a BND investigator noted.  Rokem Services did not reply to a request for comment. Asked to comment on the case, Julia Linner, a spokesperson at the BND, said the intelligence service “never publicly comments on matters that concern potential intelligence information or activities.”  Daliah Bäcker, a spokesperson for the German customs authorities, said that combating sanctions circumvention via exports through third countries to Russia “has been a particular focus since the tightening of EU sanctions following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.” “In this context, customs authorities work closely with national and international authorities and partners to exchange information and uncover violations,” she added. Jan-Henrik Dobers is a reporter with BILD, part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO. The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company’s newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.   

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