His eyebrows may have fallen off, but Edouard Philippe, a leading contender to succeed Emmanuel Macron at the 2027 French presidential election, said that his alopecia will not diminish his “extreme” political ambitions.
The country’s former prime minister, who spearheaded its fight against Covid-19 at the height of the pandemic, was a familiar face on television with his trademark brown beard.
Since leaving the post in July 2020 to become the mayor of Le Havre, his appearance has drastically changed, with his hair and beard thinning and turning white.
However, Mr Philippe, who was prime minister between 2017 and 2020, insisted that his alopecia would not stand in the way of his political plans.
“That doesn’t stop me from being extremely ambitious for my city… [or] my country,” he told BFMTV in an interview on Thursday.
“This is what had happened to me: I lost my eyebrows, and I don’t think they will come back. My beard has turned white, it’s falling out a bit, and the hair too. The moustache is gone. I don’t know if it will come back, but I would be surprised.”
Despite all this, Mr Philippe said he was lucky to have alopecia at 52, adding that it was “not painful, dangerous, contagious or serious”.
His wry and avuncular style proved popular with many French people, and some speculated that his high approval ratings had caused tensions with Mr Macron.
Some analysts see Mr Philippe as an obvious potential successor to the president, who must leave office after serving the maximum two terms in 2027.
He has founded a new centrist party called Horizons that is allied with Mr Macron’s ruling faction, but is also unafraid of showing an independent streak.
With France buffeted by strikes and protests as Paris seeks to push through landmark pension reform, Mr Philippe gave his full backing to Mr Macron for the changes.
He said he supported the changes “without ambiguity, without any bad note or any other kind of little complication”.
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