“He used to say that he’d have a role to play [in the next presidential election],” the person said. “Now, he’s giving updates on where he is in his process, saying that he wants [to run] and is preparing himself.”
Darmanin, who hails from French President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal Renaissance party, will go “a little bit further” in defining his plans in an upcoming interview on a popular YouTube talk show soon, the individual said.
The justice minister would be joining an already crowded field of centrist and right-wing politicians. Macron is constitutionally barred from contesting after serving two consecutive terms.
As a former member of the conservative Les Républicains party who switched allegiance to Macron after his 2017 presidential victory, Darmanin insists that the right-of-center coalition currently backing the government must remain united ahead of the next election to fend off challenges from both left-wing and far-right opponents. He has repeatedly said he would be open to supporting another candidate he is ideologically aligned with if they were better positioned to win.
Former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe could fit that description. The 54-year-old mayor of Le Havre, who served as Macron’s first head of government from 2017 to 2020, has already announced his candidacy and boasts a higher approval rating than Darmanin in many polls.
In a 2023 interview with the online media outlet Brut, Darmanin said that he “wished” for Philippe to be the standard-bearer for their camp in 2027, describing him at the time as “best placed” to win the election.
