Eric Zemmour Confirms He Will Run for French President Again in 2027

Eric Zemmour confirmed on TF1's evening news on Tuesday, November 10, that he will stand in France's 2027 presidential election. "I can confirm to you that I will indeed be a candidate in the presidential election," he told TF1, Reuters reported. It is his second run for the Elysee.

Zemmour, a former columnist for Le Figaro, said he had weighed the field before deciding. "I looked, I compared and I told myself that no candidate, no platform, could halt our decline and, above all, ensure that our future would truly be French," he said, according to Le Monde. He leads Reconquete, the party he founded in 2021. In the 2022 election he won 7.07 percent of the vote in the first round and placed fourth.

A confirmation after an earlier slip

The TF1 appearance was the formal step after a less planned one in September. On September 17, at the end of a 90 minute interview on BFM-TV, he said, "As you've gathered, I will be a candidate in the 2027 presidential election." Earlier in that interview he had dodged the question, saying an announcement had to be made solemnly. Le Monde called the September remark a false start. Politico reported the slip at the time and noted that it seemed to end speculation that he might step aside for his partner, Sarah Knafo. On Tuesday he chose the 8 pm news on TF1, a traditional slot for a French candidacy announcement.

Immigration at the front of the campaign

On TF1, Zemmour made what he called "negative immigration" the first pillar of his program. He promised to reduce the number of immigrants by 2 million over a five year term, Le Monde reported. His "remigration" promise, first unveiled in spring 2022 to lift falling poll numbers, remains at the center of his platform, according to Le Monde.

A party that debated replacing him

For more than a year, many inside Reconquete called for Zemmour to be replaced by Sarah Knafo, his partner and the party's only member of the European Parliament. Knafo was the chief architect of his 2022 campaign and is a graduate of the National School of Administration. Her anti-tax book, Le Casse du siecle, sold more than 300,000 copies, and its success revived the debate about who should lead the party into 2027, Le Monde reported.

The party he leads is smaller than it was. Four of the five Reconquete members elected to the European Parliament in 2024 left with Marion Marechal, and Knafo is the only one who stayed. Senior officials have also left, Le Monde reported, and Zemmour now works with a small circle of aides, with Knafo leading the group.

Rivals react, and the record follows him

Rivals on the far right were quick to play down the announcement. Philippe Olivier, a member of the European Parliament for the National Rally and an adviser to Marine Le Pen, said Zemmour had lost the standing he once held as a Le Figaro contributor and would be a fringe candidate, Le Monde reported. Le Pen has already launched her own 2027 campaign, so at least two camps will contest the far right vote.

Le Monde also noted that since 2022 Zemmour has collected six final criminal convictions, including three for incitement to hatred or racist insult. He describes them as crimes of opinion and says he would abolish the law that bans incitement to hatred. Those cases, and the party departures, are the backdrop as he starts a second campaign with the same core message as the first.