While the parties are launched into the campaign for the European elections, eyes are already turning towards 2027. The rebellious MP François Ruffin suggested on Thursday that he could be tempted to enter the race for the Élysée during the next presidential election . “I am preparing for there to be a card placed on the table,” said the elected representative of the Somme on RTL. “Why not,” he slipped, while reminding us that the deadline was not right away. A few days earlier, Jean-Luc Mélenchon had said he was ready to “be replaced” for the next election, after three candidacies in a row.
#Presidential2027: François Ruffin candidate? "I am preparing, with others, for a card to be placed on the table. Let's jump the hurdles one after the other"@Francois_Ruffin in #RTLMatin with @amandine_begot pic.twitter.com/4h718fpJ2J
— RTL France (@RTLFrance) March 28, 2024
“It is obvious that I am preparing and with others that we are preparing. I am preparing for there to be a card placed on the table,” declared François Ruffin. While emphasizing that nothing has yet been confirmed: “There are the Olympic Games coming up. I did a little athletics and I know that we jump a hurdle one after the other,” laughed the elected official.
Avoiding “small internal battles”
The MP did not want to expand further on the subject and recalled that the priority remained “first and foremost” the campaign for the European elections, which will be held in June. He assured to support “with energy” the head of the LFI list Manon Aubry, while recognizing that the battle would continue afterwards. “There is no end to the story. The finish line, for me, is how to ensure that the French live with a little more harmony in our country and that the planet is preserved,” he argued.
The elected official, who is among the party's rebels, sometimes in marked opposition to the leadership, nevertheless wanted to rule out any tension with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the man who according to him "put the left back on its feet, on its two legs, a red leg and a green leg. “I don’t come for petty internal battles,” he insisted.
Also read “It’s violent”… in the secrecy of the LFI group in the Assembly, the Rebels settle their scores
This is not the first time that the Somme MP has mentioned presidential ambitions. In February 2023, he had already declared that he would not rule out running “one day” for the vote. “If I have to embody that, I will do it”, to “represent the most invisible of the nation”, the parliamentarian then launched.
A year earlier, he had already indicated “not excluding anything” for 2027, believing he had “the right to be one voice among others for rebellious France and within the left”. Without brushing aside the years of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's candidacy: "we must start from (these) achievements" and "do better for the future, while saluting his work which has been done for 13 years", he declared on RTL in 2022.
For his part, the patriarch of the radical left had assured in recent weeks that he was “part of the hypotheses” for 2027, before seeming to turn back. “I would like to be replaced,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon finally announced last Friday, affirming that several of his executives, namely François Ruffin himself, as well as Mathilde Panot and Manuel Bompard “are working on it successfully”. “I wish them good luck,” he declared, assuring that “the next leading candidate from the left will be Insoumise.”