OPINION: The race to defeat the French far right in 2027 starts now

Local France

09-04-2025

Emmanuel Macron will have served two five-year terms, which is all that the constitution allows. Marine Le Pen will be
banned as a convicted embezzler
of public money, unless she at least partially wins her appeal next year.
So who will be the next President of the Republic?
Jordan Bardella, Marine Le Pen's glib sidekick, will be only 32 years old. Even Le Pen suggested publicly the other day that her protégé was 'not ready'. And yet the long-range polls put him far ahead of the rest of the potential 2027 field, with the same projected first-round result as Le Pen (33-36 percent).
Those, however, are first-round scores. They are menacingly high but do not guarantee a Far Right victory in the run-off. On three occasions in the Fifth Republic, in 1974, in 1981 and in 1995, it was the runner-up in Round One who topped the poll and became President in Round Two.
Explained: How France's two-round voting system works
That could easily happen again in 2027. The projected Far Right score is historically high but polls suggest that both Le Pen and Bardella would still struggle to reach 50 percent in the second round. Their negative ratings are in the upper-40s. In other words, almost half the electorate says that they would not vote for either of them.
Advertisement
The Far Right score tends to peak between presidential elections and deflate as voters come closer to polling day. The destructive behaviour of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in the next two years could undermine the popularity of populists throughout Europe.
In France, much will depend, nonetheless, on three things: which other candidate reaches the second round; their momentum at the end of Round One; and the size of the gap to be made up on Le Pen/Bardella.
Two years out, the chasing pack is already enormous and growing all the time. I can count 18 declared or likely runners. Only five, in my view, have even a slim chance of reaching Round Two.
In the Centre, the four would-be successors to President Macron include three of his five Prime Ministers: Edouard Philippe (a declared candidate); Gabriel Attal (who all but declared last weekend); and François Bayrou (who is widely suspected of thinking that his turn has come). The justice minister, Gérald Darmanin, also believes in his own destiny.
Bayrou is sinking. Darmanin is nowhere. Philippe and Attal have by far the highest first-round poll scores in the pack chasing Le Pen/Bardella (23 percent and 18 percent in an Elabe poll last weekend). These projections assume, however, that only one Centrist front-runner exists and that the other has miraculously vanished.
On the Left, there are at least eight probable contenders, if you include the stubborn candidates of the rival Trotskyist tribes plus the Communists and the Greens. There are only three Left candidates who could approach or exceed double figures. They are Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the perennial tribune of the rip-it-all-down Left; François Ruffin, his more moderate and more likeable rival; and Raphael Glucksmann, the would-be revivalist of the reformist, pro-European centre-left.
The former Socialist President, François Hollande, also dreams of a Trump-like resurrection. He shouldn't.
On the broadly Gaullist centre-right, there are four declared or likely runners, including three no-hopers and a dark horse. The no-hopers are the hapless leader of Les Républicains, Laurent Wauquiez, who is widely detested even in his own party; the president of the northern French region, Xavier Bertrand; and - implausibly but insistently - the former Chirac-era Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin.
Advertisement
The dark-horse is the hard right interior minister Bruno Retailleau, who is credited with 10 percent in some first round polls. It is unlikely, however, that both candidates in Round Two could come from the hard-and-far Right.
To this jostling crowd should be added two candidates of the xenophobic, nationalist but anti-Le Pen Right: Eric Zemmour and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, whose main significance will be to add another 7 points to the potential Le Pen/Bardella total in Round Two.
Of these 18 candidates (others will doubtless emerge) only one can reach the second round alongside Le Pen/Bardella. That is the golden ticket. Whoever joins the Far Right in the run-off will have a good chance of being the next President.
The five with at least a slender chance of reaching Round Two are, in my opinion, Philippe, Attal, Mélenchon, Glucksmann and Retailleau.
The race starts, in effect, now. There are so far no agreed systems to thin out the crowded field. There could be a primary election once again next year for the Centre-right. That is unlikely on the Left and in the Centre.
Advertisement
For them the only primary will be the public, opinion polls, giving the pollsters enormous power. Will Mélenchon continue to dominate the Left? Or will the bulk of left-wing voters, desperate for a winning candidate, reinforce early or late trends in the polls and switch to Ruffin or Glucksmann?
The other race-within-a-race will be the battle between two ex-Macron prime ministers, Philippe and Attal. They are performing a high-wire act: attempting to succeed Emmanuel while distancing themselves from Macron.
If one sprints far ahead in the polls, the other may concede and give up. If they remain neck-and neck-into 2027, the Centre could be disastrously split going into the first round on April 11th or 18th.
That might allow a left-wing candidate or Bruno Retailleau to take the second place by a fraction and confront Le Pen/Bardella in Round Two on April 25th or May 2nd.
A close finish for second place in Round One could mean no momentum for the challenger to the Far Right in the run-off. It might leave a 12 or 13 point gap behind Le Pen/Bardella – wider than any gap that has ever been bridged by a runner-up in any presidential election in the Fifth Republic.
It might mean a Far Right President.
In the last two elections, I was convinced that Le Pen could not win. In 2027, I think a Le Pen/Bardella victory is far from certain. But it is possible.
Consider the likely permutations.
Edouard Philippe v Le Pen/Bardella? Philippe wins, probably.
Gabriel Attal v Le Pen/Bardella? Attal wins, probably.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon v Le Pen/Bardella. The Far Right wins, almost certainly.
Bruno Retailleau v Le Pen/Bardella. Retailleau wins.
Raphael Glucksmann v Le Pen/Bardella. A coin-toss.