Fabien Roussel formalizes his candidacy for the 2027 presidential election

It was expected but it feels better saying it. This Sunday evening, the national secretary of the French Communist Party (PCF), Fabien Roussel, made his candidacy for the 2027 presidential election official on TF1, after a first unsuccessful attempt in 2022.

After a favorable vote by party activists, the mayor of Saint-Amand-les-Eaux (North) confirmed his candidacy for the Elysée on TF1 news, ensuring that he had made “a widely considered choice” and carried “a disruptive project”. He joins many candidates on the starting line on the left, divided in particular between Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI), Marine Tondelier (Les Ecologistes) and the primary candidates from the socialist and democratic pole such as Raphaël Glucksmann and Olivier Faure.

“A disruptive project for our country”

“I know France from the inside and I know the suffering and hopes for change of our fellow citizens, a real change which will restore purchasing power will respect workers. And that’s why I made this choice with a program, a disruptive project for our country,” declared Fabien Roussel.

At 57 years old, the man who lost his seat as deputy of the North in 2024 to the benefit of the National Rally collected 72.06% of the votes in favor of his candidacy in this internal ballot, indicated the PCF, which figures the participation at 24,000 voters. 22% of activists opposed it.

Fabien Roussel was re-elected at the beginning of July at the head of the PCF with 70.1% of the votes, a vote without suspense for the man who has led the party since 2018 and is preparing a candidacy with a radical tone in the pure communist tradition.

Accused of having prevented Mélenchon from being in the second round in 2022

In 2022, the former journalist only received 2.28% of the vote (around 802,000 votes), confirming the slow national decline of his party. His score had aroused the wrath of La France insoumise, some representatives of which publicly accused him of having prevented Jean-Luc Mélenchon from reaching the second round.

A few days before Humanity Day (September 11 to 13), this announcement was once again received harshly by the rebels. “Everyone takes their responsibilities”, but “I hope that everyone will learn from what happened in 2022”, where Jean-Luc Mélenchon was only 420,000 votes short of qualifying, declared the president of LFI deputies Mathilde Panot on BFMTV.

Find here our file dedicated to the 2027 presidential election

Fabien Roussel, for his part, affirmed that he did not wish to “talk about others” during the campaign, declining some proposals such as “doubling the share of industry in GDP”, or even doubling “the production of nuclear, renewable, hydraulic electricity”.

“This time it won’t even be 2%”

“The problem with the left is that it is not the majority in the country. What I want is to be able to contribute to making it the majority again,” he said. The candidacy is also being talked about in communist ranks, like the 22% of internal opponents of this option. “This time it won’t even be 2%. The useful vote will come into play,” lamented a PCF elected official on the sidelines of the party Congress at the beginning of the summer.