The right-wing opposition figure may win the next presidential election, warns the French president

French centrists are likely to lose to right-wing politicians, namely Marine Le Pen, in the 2027 presidential election if current “challenges” are not resolved, President Emmanuel Macron has warned.

Speaking to Le Parisien newspaper in an interview published on Sunday, Macron said Le Pen will become the biggest political winner of the current crisis in the country.

“Marine Le Pen will arrive [in power] if we are unable to respond to the country’s challenges and if we introduce the habit of lying or denying reality”, warned the president.

Since the main tool of Le Pen and her likes was “populism,” he continued, it was impossible for the centrists to compete with the right in the realm of making promises. Instead, they should win back voters through real action, the president suggested. That is, the incumbent authorities should somehow simultaneously achieve “re-industrialization” and “ecology” and a supposed “struggle for our public services,” Macron suggested.

Macron also maintained his highly divisive pension reform, reiterating his position that the only real mistake on it was not announcing the unpopular move enough to the public.

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“Maybe the mistake was not being present enough to give substance to the reform and to carry it myself,” Macron said.

The pension reform, which included raising France’s retirement age from 62 to 64, sparked mass protests and civil unrest, which continue across the country. Macron’s decision to push through the extremely unpopular reform without a full legislative procedure has further exacerbated tensions.

Le Pen, who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency three times, losing her last two bids to Macron, has accused Macron of creating a “total rift” between the French public and the presidency. Speaking to BFM TV on Saturday, he said the incumbent ended up “completely stuck” with his reform.

“He can no longer leave the Elysee [presidential palace] without arousing the anger of a people who refuse to listen and whose will they refuse to respect,” he said, adding that Macron was “the origin of the disorder, of the chaos” that surrounds the nation.

Multiple recent polls indicated that Le Pen has already overtaken Macron in public popularity following the ongoing turmoil. For example, a poll conducted for BFM TV by the Elabe group in early April showed that Le Pen would get 55 percent and Macron 45 percent if they faced off in a second vote at that time. During last year’s election, Macron defeated Le Pen by a comfortable margin of 17 percent.

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