
Retailleau proposes a primary on January 31 and February 7; Teddy Riner takes his first campaign steps; Mélenchon unveils his textile plan; the RN faces questions about overconfidence.
AI-generated summary
Several candidates are declaring themselves for the 2027 presidential election in France. Bruno Retailleau proposes a primary from the right and the center. Teddy Riner, five-time Olympic champion, announces his candidacy. Jean-Luc Mélenchon presents an investment plan for textiles. Opinionway polls measure voting intentions.
“Everything is negotiable, it has to be a few euros,” demands Les Républicains (LR) candidate Bruno Retailleau on France 2, regarding a right and center primary. The Vendéen is proposing the dates of January 31 and February 7, as Le Figaro revealed on Tuesday. And still pleads for an “open” competition, “with a certain number of commitments” and “a form of loyalty”. In the event of victory for his rival Renaissance, Gabriel Attal, he assures: “we do not have the same convictions, I will withdraw”. Before qualifying: “I will win it, he cannot win it”.
Teddy Riner, who declared himself a candidate for the presidential election this week, will make his first campaign trip to the “Made in France” show on Saturday, his entourage announced to the press on Friday.
The judoka will go to this show on Saturday at 2 p.m. which highlights French production and is held at Porte de Versailles in Paris.
The five-time Olympic champion created a sensation on Monday by announcing that he was launching the race for the Élysée.
His decision to run dates back to after the 2024 Olympics in Paris, where he saw “an entire country coming together, proud, happy. Then divide a few weeks later,” he explained in a brief video.
Teddy Riner, who claimed to be neither right nor left, said he refused to resign himself “to choosing between two possibilities, those of the extremes”.
Guest of Franceinfo, the former prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, reiterated his proposal for a “coalition of the committed”, ranging from “social democracy to the center-right”. And including candidates from Raphaël Glucksmann (Place publique) to Édouard Philippe. “As it is proposed, it would aim to recreate the UMP,” he mocked about a primary from the right and the center, demanded by several contenders.
The former Minister of the Interior, who also has ambitions for 2027, still assures about the nationalists and the rebels who dominate the polls: “I put an equal sign between the effect of excesses, but I do not put an equal sign between the activists”. “It is obvious that the president of this party has indulged in anti-Semitism,” he said about the anti-Semitic remarks attributed to Jordan Bardella. Before shooting an arrow at Jean-Luc Mélenchon: “when there are leaders within LFI who claim to become President of the Republic, and who conceptualize the consubstantiality of violence against the police, all that creates a climate in the country.”
Relocating a consumer clothing sector, developing the cultivation of linen and hemp, structuring reuse and recycling sectors: Jean-Luc Mélenchon unveils his “productive investment plan” for textiles on Friday, aiming for 10% of new clothing manufactured in France by 2032.
While only 3% of clothes purchased in France are made in France today, the La France insoumise presidential candidate, who visits the Made in France show during the day, wants to “recreate a real consumer clothing sector”, going “from culture to manufacturing, including transformation”.
The objective is to increase the share of clothing sold made in France to 10% by 2032, or an additional 80,000 tonnes per year, by mobilizing “3.45 billion euros over the five-year period”, according to this investment plan consulted by AFP.
This relocation will be based on the massive development of local ecological crops, and in particular “a rise in power” of flax and hemp, whose cultivation areas will increase by 40,000 hectares each, to reach 240,000 ha for flax, and 65,000 ha for hemp.
The plan also plans to relocate the industrial stages of processing, spinning and weaving.
Is the RN crossed by an excess of optimism, an unshakeable certainty, a hint of hubris? First there are the first round polls, where Marine Le Pen is measured at 35%, which would turn the heads of any camp. There are second round scenarios where the candidate is given the winner each time. There is also the violence of October 17 which is considered a turning point in the campaign. In Orléans, before the party, Marine Le Pen reflected out loud on the presidential election. She assures her, she is “campaigning as if” she was at “15%”. “It is the French who decide who will be in the second round,” she procrastinates, in the manner of “nothing is certain”.
The nationalist candidate already has too much experience not to know that anything can happen. She hates the state of mind of victory already achieved. In a group meeting three weeks ago, she warned her deputies, as she regularly does in private: “Don’t rest on your laurels. Let’s not believe that the election is won,” she insisted, before calling on her parliamentarians to “continue the work on the ground” and “continue to convince”. Renaud Labaye, deputy director of the campaign, says nothing else when he repeats his slogan to anyone who will listen: “We are not here to have fun. »
Also read “Things are frozen, they will no longer move, we will win”: five months before the presidential election, the RN threatened by excess confidence?
Bruno Retailleau, Les Républicains presidential candidate, affirmed Thursday that the primary of the right and the center should take place even if Édouard Philippe continues to refuse to participate.
“I want a primary to take place,” reaffirmed the Vendée senator on franceinfo during a day devoted to the candidates’ proposals on public services.
Even without Édouard Philippe? “Yes,” he replied, saying he refused to give him “the right of life or death in an attempt at a tie-breaker so that we can achieve better unity.”
Bruno Retailleau wrote this week to his competitors Édouard Philippe (Horizons), Gabriel Attal (Renaissance) and David Lisnard (Nouvelle Énergie) to propose a primary on January 31 and February 7.
Behind Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, still in the lead and qualified for the second round, David Lisnard is credited with at least 10% of voting intentions, only one point behind Édouard Philippe and Raphaël Glucksmann, according to an Opinionway poll for Les Échos and Radio Classique published Thursday.
The mayor of Cannes and leader of the New Energy party makes a resounding entry into this electoral barometer: tested for the first time, it reaches 10% in the scenario where Édouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal would both be candidates, 11% if the mayor of Le Havre was the sole “candidate of the center” and 12% against the sole leader of Renaissance.
Édouard Philippe continues to lose points, at 11% in the event of a duel with Gabriel Attal or 12% without his young centrist rival. The latter is also losing ground, at 10% without competition from the boss of Horizons, but barely 4% in the event of a clash with him.
The candidacy of David Lisnard also changes the situation for the social democratic candidate Raphaël Glucksmann, who falls by three points in all scenarios, to 13% against Édouard Philippe, 12% against Gabriel Attal and 11% if both run.
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
A right and center primary will take place on January 31 and February 7 if the candidates accept.
Possible · Within weeks

According to an Opinionway poll, David Lisnard reached at least 10% of voting intentions for his first appearance. Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon remain in the lead.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday decorated Private Thomas Iglesias, who had reprimanded him the day before for laughing near the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington. The incident occurred on November 11, Veterans Day, when Hegseth is politically weakened after the midterm elections.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu receives public service unions this Friday, November 13 at 9:30 a.m. to examine concrete measures on the salaries of the 5.8 million public employees, a few days before the strike of November 17. The unions denounce the “smicardisation” of agents and the freezing of the index point for a fourth consecutive year, while more than a million agents could soon receive differential compensation.

Éric Zemmour and Sarah Knafo, president and vice-president of Reconquête, are launching their presidential campaign from the premises of TF1, five years after their discreet beginnings.

The UK government has approved the conversion of a former Ministry of Defense site near Piddington, Oxfordshire, to house around 1,250 asylum seekers, all single men aged 18 to 65. This decision, subject to legal appeal, comes after a symbolic secession referendum organized by residents in September to protest against the project.

Civil servant unions were received on Friday November 13 in Matignon by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to demand better salaries, a few days after a boost to the minimum wage which did not concern them and before a strike announced on November 17. The freezing of the index point and violence against principals are also on the agenda.