David Douillet, Laura Flessel, Serge Blanco… Before Teddy Riner, these French athletes who launched into politics

A political arena as a playground. Teddy Riner announced, Monday, November 9, that he was entering the 2027 presidential race. “I am a candidate to say that we can lift France up,” declared the French judoka in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien and in a video published on social networks. A challenge far from impossible if we look abroad: other athletes have succeeded in reaching the highest positions in their country. We can thus think of the footballer George Weah, Golden Ball in 1995 and president of Liberia from 2018 to 2024. In France too, the transition from sport to politics is part of a long tradition. Many French athletes, before Teddy Riner, entered politics.

Among the best known, there is another judoka: David Douillet. The double Olympic champion was a UMP deputy in Yvelines from 2009 to 2011 then from 2012 to 2017. He will also be Minister of Sports from September 2011 to May 2012, succeeding another sportswoman, karateka Chantal Jouanno. She was also a minister for less than a year from November 2010 to September 2011, but had been Secretary of State in charge of Ecology for almost two years in the government of François Fillon.

A Ministry of Sports... very sporty

A position of minister or secretary of state responsible for sports under the Fifth Republic often assigned to a former sports champion. On the right with the fencer and double Olympic champion Jean-François Lamour from 2002 to 2007 or with the former coach of the French rugby XV Bernard Laporte (2007 to 2009), but also on the left with Roger Bambuck. The sprinter, double European champion and bronze medalist in 1968, was Secretary of State for Sports for three years from 1988 to 1991 in the government of Michel Rocard.

More recently, this position went to former champions such as the five-time Olympic medalist Laura Flessel (2017-2018) and the world swimming champion Roxana Maracineanu from 2018 to 2020. Or even Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, a high-level tennis player, but who ended her professional sporting career at the age of 18, first working for the Ministry of National Education and Youth, before Sports. She is today patron of the French National and Olympic Sports Committee (CNOSF).

An adventurer president of the Constitutional Council

Some have built a real political career like Serge Blanco, former star of the French rugby XV and mayor of Biarritz since March 2026 or Guy Drut, Olympic champion in the 110 meter hurdles in 1976. The sprinter was a right-wing deputy for Seine-et-Marne from 1986 and until 2007 under the RPR label, but also mayor of Coulommiers for almost sixteen years from 1992 to 2008. He was mainly Minister of Youth and Sports from 1995 to 1997 in the governments of Alain Juppé. The fact remains that in the newspaper L'Equipe, the still member of the IOC insists on feeling "a lot of admiration for the champion", but considers this candidacy "ridiculous", even adding: "It affects one without moving the other."

There were many personalities from the world of sport who presented themselves on the lists during these municipal elections with varying success: the former manager of Olympique Lyonnais Jean-Michel Aulas, the president of Montpellier Hérault Rugby Mohed Altrad, and even the freestyle skier Marie Martinod notably failed to be elected mayor.