MEP Glucksmann set to announce French presidential bid in coming days

Full text

PARIS — Center-left MEP Raphaël Glucksmann will announce that he’s running in next year’s presidential election in France in the next few days, most likely with a prime-time TV interview on Sunday, according to three people close to him.

The trio, granted anonymity to speak candidly about Glucksmann’s plans, said he plans to take part in a closed primary being organized by the Socialist Party that currently includes Ségolène Royal, the Socialist presidential candidate in 2007 who lost to Nicolas Sarkozy, and MP Philippe Brun. Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure has also said he is considering running.

While a win would guarantee Glucksmann the support of the Socialists, the main center-left force in France, the party has been struggling to make inroads with voters and is beset by infighting .

Several high-profile Socialists, including former President François Hollande and former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, have publicly hinted at plans to sit out their party’s primary and launch independent presidential bids.

However, polls show that Glucksmann, the leader of his own small political party, Place Publique, is the best-placed presidential hopeful on the center left after leading the Socialists and their allies to a strong third-place finish in the 2024 European elections.

Yet he and the rest of the field still lag significantly behind far-right front-runner Marine Le Pen, according to most surveys. France’s presidential election goes to a runoff if no candidate scores more than 50 percent of the vote, and if the polls hold, Le Pen is all but guaranteed to nab one of the final two spots.

To advance to the second round, Glucksmann will have to see off centrist and center-right rivals like Edouard Philippe and the firebrand anticapitalist Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Mélenchon, who announced his plans to run in May , is currently polling slightly ahead of Glucksmann, but both are within striking distance of making the runoff.

The two are bitter rivals whose divisions are reminiscent of those across left-leaning parties in the Western world, including the U.S. Democratic Party .

Glucksmann hopes his centrist brand of politics can win over former Socialist voters who backed President Emmanuel Macron. Mélenchon’s hardline messaging is more targeted at low-propensity voters, including younger voters and those from working-class, multicultural communities in major French cities.

Glucksmann and Mélenchon disagree on issues ranging from France’s participation in NATO, — which Mélenchon opposes and Glucksmann supports — to pension reform.

Mélenchon has pledged to lower the minimum retirement age to 60 if elected president, while Glucksmann believes some workers should be required to work longer and that France should move toward a system where retirement age would be based on life expectancy and individual working conditions.