Raphaël Glucksmann has found an argument to counter those who consider him too close to Emmanuel Macron: he says he refused the post of prime minister. Appearing on BFMTV on Sunday, the candidate for the 2027 presidential election revisited the episode from the summer of 2024.
The leader of Place publique places the episode after the snap legislative elections of July 2024, triggered by the dissolution of the National Assembly. The vote put the New Popular Front in the lead, though without an absolute majority. After several weeks of consultations, the head of state ultimately chose Michel Barnier, a figure from the Republicans, to head the government.
A Claim Immediately Qualified by the Executive
It is during this period that Glucksmann says he ruled out the possibility of joining the government. “From the start,” he said, he “refused” to enter a government led by Emmanuel Macron, specifying that this also applied to the position of “prime minister […] post-dissolution.”
That version was immediately qualified by the presidential camp. Questioned by AFP, a source within the executive acknowledged that the possibility of appointing Glucksmann to Matignon “was discussed without giving rise to a formal offer.”
A Response to Accusations of Proximity to Macron
The clarification is not insignificant for Glucksmann, who is seeking to establish himself on the left ahead of the 2027 presidential race. La France insoumise in particular accuses him of being close to Macronism. His claimed refusal of Matignon is therefore meant to serve as proof: by his account, he could have joined the presidential camp on several occasions but always opposed it.
“If I had been even slightly seduced by Macronism, I would have accepted all the offers over the past ten years,” he insisted on BFMTV, asserting that his refusal had always been “very clear in (his) mind.”
Sharp Criticism of the Macron Record
To underscore that distance further, he also took aim at Emmanuel Macron’s record since 2017. He denounced “triumphant individualism” and “France’s conversion to a more liberal policy,” as well as what he described as the erasure of the divide between left and right.
“I never believed that a term beginning with cuts to housing aid and the abolition of the wealth tax could bring a sense of justice to our country,” he added.
