The chef's surprise. While the list of presidential candidates is already plethoric, a heavyweight is also entering the race for the Élysée. Without anyone seeing it coming, Teddy Riner announced his candidacy for the 2027 campaign this Monday. “I will not be one of those who watch the country burn,” declares the judoka in a video posted on social networks, worried to see France “collapsed under the weight of the debt” and which is fractured into two extreme blocks. “If refusing to lower my head and refusing chaos makes me crazy, then yes, I am completely crazy,” adds the five-time French Olympic champion, who intends to fight for “the France we want”, his campaign slogan.
In the political class, we imagine that this surprise candidacy took everyone by surprise. “Today we are suffering more from an overflow of applications than from a shortage, so I have a lot of difficulty understanding the meaning of his approach,” underlines communications advisor Gaspard Gantzer, who does not believe “for a second” in the chances of the judoka who is accustomed to victories. “I have a lot of admiration for the great champion that he is and we feel that he is sincere,” continues the former communications advisor to President Hollande. But France needs people with political experience to lead it. And even if Teddy Riner is popular and likeable, I have difficulty seeing him as leader of our armies and our diplomacy, discussing with Putin or Trump or signing international treaties. »
A “completely eccentric” application
In his video, the 37-year-old Guadeloupean does not hide his inexperience in politics. “I know what people are going to say about me, he’s crazy, he’s not from the inner circle, he doesn’t have the codes, he’s never been in politics,” he assures, not seeing anything wrong with it. Because to listen to him, “France does not need a professional politician who recites lessons” but “common sense, firmness, justice and a State which puts things right”.
For political scientist Thierry Vedel, this candidacy “is really curious and surprising”. First of all, on form with this video in which Teddy Riner, in a dark suit and white shirt, speaks behind a desk with a bookcase and the French flag in the background. “The intervention is very presidential, we have the impression that it is the president who speaks to us more than an election candidate,” deciphers the researcher at Cevipof.
But it is above all the substance that questions the political scientist. “In his speech, he highlights a concern more than a program because there is no proposal or strong direction,” underlines Thierry Vedel, judging this candidacy “completely far-fetched”. “But it is perhaps also a way of telling future governments that it is available,” he suggests.
He declares himself “neither right nor left”
Accustomed to “fighting, to falling, to getting back up, always”, Teddy Riner will in any case have to take out the heating blue if he wants to achieve his ambitions. And very quickly collect the 500 signatures of elected officials necessary to present themselves. “In a democracy, that cannot be an obstacle. I believe in the French Republic,” confides the judoka to our colleagues at Le Parisien. “I am not saying that he will not succeed in obtaining them, but he will still have to convince people of the meaning of his candidacy and its usefulness beyond all the love and friendship that we have for him,” believes Gaspard Gantzer.
