Emmanuel Macron and his former prime minister Edouard Philippe, who hopes to succeed the French president after the 2027 election, made a rare joint public appearance on Thursday to remember eighty years since the liberation of a French port from Nazi occupation.
The Normandy port of Le Havre was liberated by Allied troops on September 12, 1944, more than three months after the D-Day landings to the west.
But the freeing of Le Havre was shadowed by intense Allied bombardments a week before that devastated the city and left more than 2,000 of its inhabitants dead.
The political symbolism was being watched as closely as the historical references, with reportedly glacial relations between Macron and Philippe, who is now mayor of Le Havre but from 2017 to 2020 was Macron's prime minister, his longest-serving head of government.
Macron said in a speech that Le Havre had never "completely healed" from the bombing, which gave the city "the colour and appearance of ashes, crushed, pulverised".
He said that in contrast to the sheer jubilation felt in Paris when it was liberated in August 1944, Le Havre felt the "infinite suffering of a city sacrificed to liberate its country".
Philippe expressed his "sincere thanks" to Macron for his presence, which showed "the importance that the nation now attatches" to this painful history.
According to the Elysee, this was the first time large-scale ceremonies have been held in Le Havre to mark the liberation, due to the "trauma" caused by the Allied bombardments.
With Macron last week still scrambling to find a new prime minister after legislative elections, Philippe, 53, suddenly announced for the first time his intention to stand for president in the next presidential elections.
Macron, 46, was "surprised" by the abruptness and timing of the announcement, even if Philippe's intention to stand had never been a secret, a person close to him, asking not to be named, told AFP.
Philippe, who leads a centre-right party that is allied to but not part of Macron's faction, has since warmly applauded the naming of right-winger Michel Barnier as prime minister and warned the president to give him space to rule.
"To be president (in modern France) does not mean inaugurating chrysanthemums," Philippe told BFMTV late on Wednesday.
"It does not mean governing. The president must preside, the government must govern."
Despite those barbs, Philippe greeted Macron with a warm handshake in Le Havre and the president addressed him as "dear Edouard Philippe".
Some saw Philippe's early announcement of his candidacy as a recognition that due to the current political turbulence in France, Macron could even step down before his second and final mandate ends in 2027 and prompt an early presidential election.
The former premier, known to be a keen boxer, had taken the gloves off in his criticism of Macron's move to call the snap legislative elections, which he described as "poorly thought out, poorly explained, poorly prepared" and which had "killed the presidential majority" in parliament.
An Ifop poll published on Thursday showed that far-right leader Marine Le Pen was ahead in voting intentions for the first round of the 2027 presidential elections but that Philippe was her best-placed challenger.
