National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and her deputy Jordan Bardella would handily win the first round of next year’s presidential election; however, a top Macronist has emerged as a potential leading opponent in the second round, a poll taken in the wake of the municipal elections found.
A survey from Elabe for BFMTV and La Tribune Dimanche has found that between 31.5 and 38 per cent of voters would back the National Rally candidate in the first round of voting next year, depending on the various likely string of candidates, all of whom currently trail the RN by double digits.
There is currently some ambiguity over which National Rally leader will actually be on the ticket in 2027, with three-time candidate Marine Le Pen facing the prospect of a five-year ban from standing for elections in Europe over allegations of misuse of EU Parliament funds. Her 30-year-old second-in-command, Jordan Bardella, has been publicly tipped as the party’s “plan B” in the event of a ban on his longtime mentor.
According to the survey — and others before it — Bardella may actually have a better chance in both rounds than his boss. He is widely preferred over most major candidates in head-to-head matchups, besting former Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau of the centre-right Les Républicains by 58 to 42 per cent, left-wing media establishment darling Raphaël Glucksmann 58.5 to 41.5 per cent, and the leader of the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party Jean-Luc Mélenchon by 71.5 to 28.5 per cent.
However, the poll found one candidate who could take down either Bardella or Le Pen in a second-round contest: former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, who served as head of President Emmanuel Macron’s government between 2017 and 2020. He has since served as Mayor of the port city of Le Havre. Respondents narrowly favoured Philippe over Bardella by 51.5 to 48.5 per cent, and over Le Pen by 53 to 47 per cent.
Such a victory would likely require the former prime minister to convince the various left-wing, liberal, and centre-right factions to rally around his candidacy, while using the Le Penist party as a political boogeyman, as was successfully done by Philippe’s former boss, Emmanuel Macron, in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections. Yet it remains to be seen whether the increasingly radicalised supporters of Mélenchon or disaffected Républicains will fall in line again behind another establishment candidate, merely out of fear of the RN.
The scenario would also require that Philippe reach the second round of voting in the first place. With only two slots available, and one all but claimed by the National Rally, the Le Havre mayor will likely be fighting against some combination of the far-left bloc, the less far-left socialist bloc, neoliberal Macronists, and the centre-right for a ticket to the final round. In light of the possibility of tactical alliances and the fickle nature of the French voter, this is far from a given.
Despite his drastic change in appearance since leaving the Hôtel Matignon in 2020, after which he developed alopecia and lost much of his hair, Philippe has retained personal popularity with the public since leaving Paris. It is possible that being out of the spotlight amid the political turmoil of recent years has merely painted the former PM in a better light than his successors. Undoubtedly, Le Pen and Bardella would likely seek to tie Philippe to Macron as closely as possible should he return to frontline politics and enter the presidential race.
Amid the possibility of a split centrist vote leading to a second round square off between the National Rally and Mélenchon, some 90 leading figures from the Macronist and Républicain blocs called for “unity” around a “single candidacy”, warning that a divided centre would result in a “one-way ticket to populism”. It remains doubtful, however, that either Philippe, his fellow former PM Gabriel Attal, or LR leader Retailleau will step aside for a consensus candidate any time soon.
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