Napoleon admirer launches new party in bid for presidency
Dominique de Villepin, France's former prime minister, likened himself to Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte on Tuesday as he signalled his intention to become president.
De Villepin, 71, who led his country's refusal to join the war in Iraq in 2003, is seeking to portray himself as the saviour of a nation in decline. Opponents accuse him of a cheap attempt to exploit the country's political chaos by appealing to left-wing Muslims and mainstream centrist voters.
He has launched his own political party, La France Humaniste (Humanist France), which he hopes will carry him to the Élysée in 2027.
The move is reminiscent of President Macron's strategy in 2016, when he founded his own party before a successful run for the presidency a year later. Macron campaigned as an outsider who would rise above petty political squabbling to lead pragmatists into battle against populism.
De Villepin seems to be employing the same tactics, although he denied following in Macron's footsteps.
With the incumbent unable to run for a third term, the 2027 election is clouded in uncertainty. Marine Le Pen, leader of the populist right National Rally and frontrunner in the polls, has been barred from running for office after being convicted of corruption. She will only be able to stand if she overturns her sentence on appeal next year.
On the left, the radical Jean-Luc Mélenchon is keen to stand for a fourth time but has been accused of antisemitism. On the centre-right there are half a dozen contenders, although none have captured the public imagination to emerge as a favourite.
De Villepin, who was interior minister, foreign minister and prime minister during the presidency of Jacques Chirac between 2002 and 2007, has yet to announce his candidacy officially but has made clear his intention to run. An Ifop poll last month found him to be the country's most popular politician with 51 per cent of respondents saying they had a good opinion of him.
His aim is to win broad support by reaching out to the left with a pro-Arab message while hoping that his record in government will be enough to ensure support from the centre and the centre-right.
In interviews with French media outlets, he suggested that Macron had demeaned the presidency by meddling in day-to-day politics and said that France needed an 'arbiter' above the fray who would 'inspire the nation'. Vaunting his experience in government he added: 'We need more professionalism and less of a bidding war [between politicians] in television studios.'
He said the launch of La France Humaniste was the 'starting point for an action that stems from a great French tradition'. In a pitch for voters on the left and right, he cast himself as heir to the country's greatest figures: the likes of Joan of Arc; Napoleon Bonaparte; Jean Jaurès, the socialist assassinated in 1914; Pierre Mendès-France, the moderate postwar leftwinger; and General Charles de Gaulle, the resistance leader and president.
Detractors, however, believe he is making a cynical grab for a left-wing ethnic minority vote with his outspoken criticism of Israel's military intervention in Gaza.
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