PARIS — If time is indeed a flat circle, François Hollande may yet have a chance of returning to power in France next year.
The 71-year-old, who served as French president from 2012 to 2017, told dozens of influential supporters, including elected officials and public servants, at a garden party at the French Senate that he thinks he “could be useful” in next year’s presidential election.
“I’ve been president before; I know what the job entails, and I’ve held that position,” Hollande said, according to an attendee who was granted anonymity to relay details about the private gathering. Hollande said he believes French voters will in 2027 focus on “what matters,” which means: “Who can lead France? Who can help France find its place?”
“Many people started campaigning in June. What matters is what will happen at the end of this year and early next year,” he said.
Hollande had previously said he is “getting ready” ahead of the election but is postponing a decision until closer to the end of the year. He hopes favorable opinion polls and turmoil within his own center-left Socialist Party could offer him a path back to power.
But a comeback remains a long shot. Hollande left office in 2017 after having registered the lowest-ever approval rating — four percent — of any French president in recent history. He was loathed by both his opponents on the right and erstwhile allies on the left, who accused him of failing to pursue the ambitious progressive agenda he had promised during his campaign.
His image has improved over the past decade. A recent survey from French pollster Ifop placed him second in a ranking of 50 public figures, with 49 percent of respondents saying they held a positive view of the former president.
But likeability and electability are two different things. Three separate pollsters have tested Hollande as a Socialist Party candidate over the past month, and he was consistently shown receiving less than 10 percent of the projected vote and missing the runoff by a significant margin.
In French presidential elections, the two best-placed candidates advance to a second round if none receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round. Polling currently shows the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen well-placed to reach the runoff, with the race for second place much more open.
Radical left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose rivalry with Hollande dates back several decades to when the two men fought internally within the Socialist Party, appears to be the best-placed figure on the left to qualify for the runoff.
Even on the center-left, Hollande is polling behind presidential hopeful and member of the European Parliament Raphaël Glucksmann, who has said he will announce near the end of the summer whether he is running for president.
The Socialists are expected to hold a closed primary in October, where members of the party and of allied forces, including Glucksmann’s own micro-party Place Publique, will be invited to pick their champion.
Hollande, however, does not wish to take part in the process. He is instead betting that whoever emerges as the Socialist candidate may look weak as the campaign unfolds, fueling calls for a seasoned politician like himself to return to the game.
Sarah Paillou contributed to this report.
