Macron’s successor: is it possible to prevent the far right from coming to power in France?
The next presidential election in France is still a year away. The country, however, is already entering the pre-election campaign and doing so amid a situation of deep uncertainty.
France enters the 2027 presidential race in a moment of profound uncertainty. Emmanuel Macron’s second term transformed the political landscape: his reformist ambition collided with a society exhausted by crises, while the war in Ukraine reshaped Europe’s strategic priorities.
For Kyiv, the stakes are dangerously high.
France is not just another European state. It is a nuclear power, a permanent member of the United Nation Security Council, key component of the European Union, and Ukraine’s 7th biggest military supporter. Macron’s successor will be a key influence on the durability of European support, the cohesion of the sanction’s regime, and the future of defence cooperation.
The next French president will inherit a country defined by social anxiety and geopolitical tension.
They will also shape France’s influence on the eastern front of Europe for years to come. For Ukraine, understanding this transition is a matter of strategic foresight.
And all this raises the question: is it possible to stop the far right’s victorious march toward the presidency? And which French politicians are capable of doing so?
How Macron’s second term reshaped France
Macron’s second term was marked by a growing sense of national fatigue. The pension reform, which raised the retirement age from 62 to 64, ignited one of the most sustained waves of protest in decades.
Weeks of strikes and demonstrations deepened the perception of a government disconnected from working-class reality.
Inflation, partly fuelled by energy shocks caused by Russia’s war, added to the country’s frustration.
Macron’s political coalition, built in 2017 on optimism and a promise to transcend traditional divides, gradually eroded.
By 2025, confidence in the political centre had significantly weakened.
Data from the April 2025 Hexagone–IFOP survey shows that the electorate once loyal to Macron’s brand of technocratic centrism is now structurally diminished, struggling to exceed 16 to 19 percent even under favourable conditions for its leading figure, former prime minister Édouard Philippe.
At the same time, France’s socio-political fragmentation intensified. Younger generations expressed distrust toward institutions.
The working population felt economically and culturally insecure. Retirees, traditionally cautious, increasingly shifted toward the National Rally (Rassemblement national, RN). According to Hexagone–IFOP, RN now leads among both working voters (36 percent) and retirees (29 percent), a historic reversal that fuels the party’s unprecedented rise.
The political consequences are dramatic. The traditional left-right balance is shattered, replaced by three distinctive blocs: a weakened centre, a divided left, and a dominant far right.
For Ukraine, this fragmentation matters. It creates uncertainty in foreign policy orientation when Europe’s security environment demands stability.
The triumph of the far right
Every major poll indicates the same trend: the far right is no longer an outsider as it was for the last decades. It is now the core trend of French politics.
According to the same April 2025 Hexagone–IFOP survey, the RN candidate, Jordan Bardella, reaches between 32 and 35 percent of first-round voting intentions in all tested scenarios, consistently placing first and often far ahead of the runner-up.
The report notes that in some configurations, the advantage reaches up to 17 points,
giving the RN a formidable starting position for the 2027 race. Three factors explain this rise.
First, RN seems to successfully capture the anxieties of the "France that works" yet feels abandoned. The party’s record levels among employees, self-employed workers, and industrial regions reveal a profound distrust of traditional elites.
Second, retirees have joined this movement. Once reliably moderate, they now favour RN candidates far more than before. For a country where older voters vote in higher proportions, this shift is consequential.
Third, RN’s internal succession mechanism is unusually robust. In case of legal obstacles preventing Marine Le Pen from running, Jordan Bardella seamlessly absorbs her electorate. He retains 91 percent of her 2022 voters, 38 percent of Éric Zemmour’s voters, and even 17 percent of Valérie Pécresse’s voters.
This solidity makes RN the only political force nearly guaranteed to reach the second round of the presidential election.
For Ukraine, this matters as well. The RN has long expressed scepticism toward NATO, questioned arms deliveries to Kyiv, and maintained historical ties with Russia. Even though Jordan Bardella has softened the party’s tone since 2022, its overall strategic direction towards Ukraine remains unclear.
However, the key question is who will face Le Pen/Bardella in the second round and which French politicians actually have a real chance of winning?
Two former Prime Ministers
Macron’s centre party once represented the main dynamic of French politics. But his successors now have a much harder time.
At the moment, the two former heads of government are the most frequently mentioned as potential presidential candidates from this political camp.
Édouard Philippe
Often seen as Macron’s most credible successor, Philippe embodies competence, pragmatism, and experience. His years as prime minister before the Covid-19 pandemic left him with an image of calm stewardship.
Yet this association with the "better years" of Macronism is not enough to guarantee electoral success.
Polls show Philippe at 16 to 19 percent, depending on the scenario, respectable, but insufficient to challenge RN’s dominance or secure a place in the second round with certitude.
For Ukraine, Philippe represent a reassuring option. He is a convinced European, supportive of NATO integration and strongly opposed to Russian aggression, therefore would likely maintain France’s military and political commitments to Kyiv.
Gabriel Attal
Initially perceived as the future of the centrist movement, Attal’s trajectory vacillated. Despite his rapid ascent to prime minister in his early thirties, he is today seen as too young, too fragile, and too tied to Macron’s contested policies.
The IFOP barometer shows that only 34 percent of respondents want him to run, and just 51 percent believe he will eventually become a candidate. Electoral scenarios give him around 10 percent of voting intentions, confirming his fragile position.
As prime minister, he defended continued military aid and closer European coordination, and he travelled to Odesa twice. His commitment is also personal. His mother’s family comes from the historic Kouriss line near Odesa, a noble Ukrainian lineage forced to flee the Bolsheviks. During a 2024 visit to Issaïevo, local historians even showed him a preserved genealogical chart where his full name appears in Cyrillic.
Despite his weak polling numbers, Attal is one of the French politicians most instinctively aligned with Ukraine. But with his current standing, the possibility of him advancing to the second round is low.
The left: Divided
Due to the weakness of the pro-presidential camp, the opponent of the far right may turn out to be a politician from the left.
Among left-wing politicians, there are many supporters of Ukraine, but politically this field is dominated by the far left party La France Insoumise, which holds an ambiguous position on Ukraine.
Raphaël Glucksmann
If one figure reshaped the French left since 2022, it is Raphaël Glucksmann. Long considered peripheral, he now stands as the main alternative to Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The Hexagone study reveals that Glucksmann can "break the dominance" of Mélenchon for the first time in a decade, performing at equal or higher levels across multiple scenarios
In IFOP’s September 2025 polling, Glucksmann reaches 14 to 16 percent, while Mélenchon stagnates at 12 to 13 percent
A report by Le Monde highlights the strategic repositioning Glucksmann seeks: alliances with Bernard Cazeneuve (former Prime Minister), François Hollande (former French President 2012-2017), Carole Delga, and other social democrats, giving shape to a broad centre-left front focused on defence, social cohesion, and ecological transition
For Ukraine, Glucksmann has consistently defended sanctions, military support, and accountability for Russian war crimes,
though his chances of reaching the second round remain low.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Mélenchon’s power lies in rhetoric and mobilization, not in electoral expansion. Despite high visibility, he fails to broaden his base. IFOP gives him no more than 13 percent, even in favourable scenarios
Mélenchon is perceived as inconsistent, volatile, and too extreme for mainstream voters.
His positions on Ukraine, opposition to NATO, scepticism toward military aid, and push for "non-alignment", clashes with Europe’s approach and distances him from many voters in France.
The Républicans searching for a candidate
Les Républicains (LR), once the dominant force of the Fifth Republic, are today a party without direction. A Le Monde analysis from November 2025 describes a movement reopening the debate on primaries due to the absence of a " natural candidate".
Bruno Retailleau, newly elected party president, performs between 9 and 13 percent depending on scenarios, far below what is needed to challenge the far right or centre parties.
Historically, LR has maintained strong positions against Russian aggression and tended to support NATO policies.
Yet electorally, the party is no longer capable of shaping the national debate. For Ukraine, LR offers stability but not viability.
The second round scenarios
Across all simulations, the likely second-round scenarios are: Jordan Bardella vs Édouard Philippe, or Jordan Bardella vs another centrist figure (Attal in rare cases).
If Jordan Bardella reaches, and wins, the presidency
This would represent the most significant shift in French foreign policy since the 1960s.
Even if the RN avoids an openly pro-Kremlin stance today, its strategy remains rooted in Euroscepticism, doubts about NATO, and critiques of "escalation" in Ukraine. A Bardella presidency could : slow or freeze arms deliveries, oppose deeper NATO integration, weaken EU cohesion on sanctions, encourage a more transactional approach toward Russia.
If Édouard Philippe reaches the second round
For Ukraine, this is the most favourable realistic scenario.
Philippe would continue France’s strong support within NATO, maintain military assistance as well as sanctions against Russia, and invest in European defence cooperation. His pragmatic approach would align France closely with the EU’s eastern members and reinforce long-term commitments to Kyiv’s reconstruction.
His challenge, however, lies in mobilising the centrist electorate in a fragmented society.
If another left-wing candidate were to surge
Only Glucksmann offers a combination of pro-European conviction and strong support for Ukraine. But his candidacy lacks the electoral mass needed to reach the second round.
Mélenchon, though louder, would lead France into a path that divides Europe and fragilise Ukraine’s support.
France's 2027 election will be decisive not only for its domestic future but for the strategic balance of Europe.
The political landscape has changed irreversibly. The far right has achieved structural dominance. The centre struggles to mobilise. The left renews itself but cannot yet win. And all the while, the war in Ukraine continues to define Europe’s security architecture.
For Kyiv, France support is essential for long-term military aid, reconstruction financing, sanctions enforcement, and the future of European defence.
Charlotte Guillou-Clerc,
Journalist (France)