France’s former prime minister Gabriel Attal said on Friday he would run for president next year, becoming the second prominent centrist to challenge the far right when Emmanuel Macron steps down.
“I can’t take this kind of French politics anymore, where it’s just 50 shades of managing decline,” said the 37-year-old, who was France’s youngest prime minister when he served in 2024.
“I have decided to run for president,” he said in the southern village of Mur-de-Barrez.
The newest presidential candidate, an openly gay Parisian who leads the Renaissance party founded by Macron, is hoping to lead the centrist camp in the 2027 polls.
“Having travelled a lot in France and met many French people, I’ve come to a conviction — a very strong one — that our finest chapters are still ahead of us,” he said.
He will face competition from 55-year-old Edouard Philippe, a former head of government earlier during Macron’s tenure who leads his own Horizons party.
Opinion polls have suggested that Philippe could win the presidential election in a runoff against the far right.
Speaking to the press in Mur-de-Barrez, Attal pledged to uplift individuals “so that everyone in France can say to themselves that their children, their grandchildren will have a better life”.
He also promised to uplift France so that “every French person in France can say to themselves that our country will once again become Europe’s leading power”.
Attal rose quickly after he entered politics in his early 20s.
He was elected to France’s lower house of parliament in 2017 and later served as government spokesperson, budget minister and education minister.
He stepped down as prime minister after Macron dissolved the parliament in the summer of 2024, in a gamble that was intended to stave off the advance of the far right.
The snap polls instead backfired and ended up allowing the far-right Rassemblement National to become the single largest party in a hung parliament, leading to months of political deadlock.
Attal distanced himself from Macron over the dissolution, saying he had not been consulted.
