From Cannes to the presidency: France's new right-wing contender

In less than a month, David Lisnard has gained more than 300,000 followers on social media. His political movement, Nouvelle Énergie, claims to have surpassed 81,000 members, compared with around 55,000 a week earlier.

Until recently, the 57-year-old mayor of Cannes was relatively unknown outside French political circles. Now, he is attracting national attention ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

The electoral picture is more restrained. His online expansion has been remarkable, but it has yet to produce comparable levels of electoral support.

A survey conducted on 17–19 October gave Lisnard between 5.5% and 7% of first-round voting intentions,

depending on the candidates included

What makes Lisnard particularly interesting is the programme accompanying his sudden popularity. At a time when France's traditional right is struggling to distinguish itself from Emmanuel Macron's centrism and the nationalist right, Lisnard is defending an ambitious programme of economic liberalisation, drastic public-spending cuts and decentralisation. He couples these proposals with conservative positions on immigration, security and national authority.

For a country where economic liberalism has rarely inspired mass electoral enthusiasm, Lisnard's sudden popularity is striking. Whether voters are embracing his economic ideas or simply the man promoting them is far less certain.

Cannes as a launchpad

Lisnard is hardly a newcomer to politics. He began his career in local government, became mayor of Cannes in 2014 and was elected president of the Association of French Mayors (AMF) in 2021.

He developed Nouvelle Énergie from a local political initiative into a national movement before leaving Les Républicains (LR) in March 2026 to pursue his presidential ambitions independently.

Lisnard has built his political reputation in Cannes, where he was re-elected for a third term in March with more than 81% of votes cast. His list won 45 of the 49 council seats, although fewer than half of registered voters participated.

Lisnard presents Cannes as evidence that public administration can be made more efficient without sacrificing investment. According to the municipality's 2025 accounts, the city's debt has fallen by nearly €82 million since 2014, while €72.5 million was invested during 2025 alone.

An independent audit by the regional chamber of accounts confirmed that Cannes had maintained sound finances and improved its management. It also found that transfers of responsibilities to the intermunicipal authority contributed to reductions in municipal expenditure.

Cannes's substantial tourism-related revenues further distinguish it from most French municipalities.

These qualifications do not negate Lisnard's record, but they complicate his argument that the same methods could be applied to France as a whole. A municipality benefiting from international tourism and major commercial events operates under very different financial and institutional constraints from the French state.

Nevertheless, his experience gives him an established political base.

Unlike a candidate whose notoriety originates entirely online, Lisnard had spent decades building relationships with elected officials before acquiring a much larger national audience.

The speed of that expansion has surprised even experienced political observers. According to Le Monde, he gained more than 300,000 social-media followers from late September to mid-October, with much of the increase concentrated on Instagram. His slogan, "something is happening" spread rapidly across social platforms.

Nouvelle Énergie, meanwhile, claimed 81,547 registered members and a database of 1,830 elected officials on 24 October.

Neither figure has been independently audited, and the latter does not necessarily represent politicians affiliated exclusively with the movement. Whatever the explanation for the rapid increase in visibility, Lisnard has succeeded in drawing attention to a political project that had previously received limited national exposure.

A liberal revolution for France?

At the centre of Lisnard's programme is a severe diagnosis of the French economic model. He argues that decades of expanding public expenditure, taxation and regulation have weakened competitiveness, discouraged enterprise and left France dependent on borrowing to sustain a state it can no longer afford.

His proposed remedy is extensive. Lisnard wants to reduce annual public expenditure by €80 billion during his first year in office and by at least €200 billion by the end of the presidential term. His longer-term ambition reaches €300 billion.

His argument is that France taxes employment and production too heavily,

making companies less competitive while preventing employees from receiving a sufficient share of what their work costs employers. Lower contributions, he believes, would improve purchasing power and encourage employment without relying on further borrowing.

The programme extends well beyond taxation. Lisnard advocates greater labour-market flexibility, the elimination or consolidation of public agencies, a reduction in administrative staffing and a transfer of responsibilities away from central government.

On pensions, he supports raising the legal retirement age to 65 and introducing a compulsory funded component alongside the existing pay-as-you-go system.

The scale of these proposals deserves attention. Cutting €200 billion from annual public expenditure would require changes extending far beyond administrative efficiency.

France's social insurance, pensions, healthcare and public services account for a substantial proportion of government spending. Decisions about their financing inevitably affect the distribution of resources between citizens, businesses and generations.

There is also a difference between reducing public expenditure and reducing the fiscal deficit. Lisnard proposes returning most of the savings to workers and companies through lower contributions and taxation. Under his stated allocation, only €40 billion of the €200 billion would go directly towards debt reduction.

His campaign maintains that the necessary savings have been identified. Their feasibility, timing and effects on public services require independent examination.

French voters have repeatedly demonstrated their attachment to public services and social protection, including when supporting parties that favour greater economic freedom.

Lisnard nevertheless sees the existing welfare-state model as exhausted. In a recent interview, he argued that France needed to develop a new system rather than continue financing an increasingly expensive one through debt.

His liberalism also has clear limits.

On security, Lisnard advocates tougher criminal penalties, greater police authority and stronger measures against drug trafficking.

His immigration programme proposes substantially reducing residence permits, tightening access to certain benefits and asserting greater national control over migration policy, even where that would involve confrontation with European judicial institutions.

In education, he proposes giving schools considerably more autonomy, including greater freedom over admissions and organisation, while reinforcing academic standards.

These positions reflect his understanding of the state's proper role. He wants government to withdraw from areas where he believes individuals, businesses and local authorities can act more effectively, while strengthening its authority over security, justice, education and defence.

His programme therefore combines a substantial reduction in economic intervention with a demanding conception of public order and national sovereignty. Its political coherence depends partly on whether those stronger sovereign functions can be financed alongside the tax and spending reductions he proposes.

Lisnard's battle for a place on the right

Lisnard's sudden visibility comes amid a prolonged struggle over the identity of France's traditional right.

The emergence of Macron's centrist movement weakened Les Républicains by attracting part of its moderate and economically liberal electorate.

At the same time, the Rassemblement National (RN) expanded its support among voters who might previously have identified with the conservative right, particularly on immigration, security and questions of national identity. Lisnard is seeking to establish a position within those divisions.

His relationship with Bruno Retailleau illustrates the difficulties. The two men share conservative positions on immigration, public order and national authority, alongside commitments to controlling public expenditure.

But Lisnard places economic liberalisation at the centre of his programme and has openly challenged the strategy of LR, which Retailleau leads.

Their disagreement is institutional as well as ideological. Lisnard left LR in March after the party rejected his preferred approach to an open presidential primary.

He subsequently called for a broader selection process capable of bringing together competing currents of the right.

The RN presents another challenge.

Lisnard shares some of its positions on immigration and security, but his economic programme differs substantially from the nationalist party's more interventionist approach, particularly concerning social protection, industrial policy and the role of the state in protecting purchasing power. He also rejects withdrawal from the European Union, advocating cooperation between sovereign European states while opposing further political centralisation.

His growing influence has nevertheless begun to affect relations within the traditional right. On 21 October, Lisnard met Retailleau again to discuss the possibility of avoiding competing presidential candidacies, including through a primary. No agreement was reached.

From online popularity to political power

His foreign-policy positions also deserve attention, particularly in Ukraine.

Lisnard has repeatedly supported Ukraine against Russia's invasion and advocated strengthening European defence production. He has personal experience of cooperation with Ukrainian authorities: Cannes established a partnership with Lviv in 2022, followed by a medical cooperation agreement with the UNBROKEN rehabilitation network in March 2024.

He favours stronger European defence capabilities while maintaining that political sovereignty should remain principally with individual states. He has also argued for restoring structured diplomatic dialogue with Russia after the war.

His positions on Ukraine's eventual EU accession and specific post-war security guarantees remain less clearly defined.

For now, the most striking feature of Lisnard's candidacy is the speed with which a long-established local politician has acquired a national audience. His political organisation and economic convictions existed well before the recent surge in attention. What has changed is the number of people his speech reaches.

Whether that enthusiasm represents a growing constituency for economic liberalism remains uncertain. France's traditional right has long struggled to reconcile its commitment to lower public expenditure with an electorate that continues to value extensive social protection.

Lisnard has demonstrated his ability to govern a city and, more recently, to attract a national audience.

Governing France would involve a different test. His proposed reforms would require a parliamentary majority willing to reshape public expenditure on a scale rarely attempted in modern French politics.

Charlotte Guillou-Clerc,

Journalist, France