A debate has broken out among three potential presidential candidates for 2027. It isn’t a particularly edifying debate, nor an incisive one, but phrases resembling ideas are being bandied about and the air is filled with something other than brickbats and invective. The participants are François Ruffin, Raphaël Glucksmann, and Édouard Philippe.
Ruffin is responding to Glucksmann; Philippe is responding to Ruffin. The polemics are hedged about with formulas of politesse:
Voilà plusieurs fois que vous me tendez la main, « il faudra parler avec Monsieur Ruffin ». Il le faut, oui, ce dialogue, avec vous, dont la voix compte, et avec d’autres.
Permettez-moi de démarrer cet échange ici.
(Ruffin to Glucksmann)
Monsieur le Député,
Vous avez pris la peine de me lire, et de m’écrire, et je vous en remercie sincèrement. Je déplore souvent le manque de sérieux du débat politique et suis heureux de l’opportunité que vous m’offrez de débattre avec vous sur le fond.
(Philippe to Ruffin)
The parties thus appear determined to maintain the appearance of civility, in order to distinguish themselves from their common enemies, Mélenchon on one side and Le Pen/Bardella on the other. Of course, the veneer is very thin in places: Ruffin cannot refrain from noting that Glucksmann has admitted to feeling more at home in New York and Berlin than in Picardy, of which Ruffin styles himself a proud native son in fine populist/anti-elitist style. Philippe credits Ruffin with sincerity, the better to discredit his simple-mindedness, which a less sincere politician would more cleverly mask.
But the outlines of a genuine debate begin to emerge. Are France’s difficulties more plausibly attributable to the nature of the capitalist system itself or to a failure to comprehend what the system demands? Are remedies for these difficulties more likely to emerge from debate among experts or from heeding popular laments?
These three men face similar challenges. Each has surmounted the first hurdle facing a potential candidate, namely, to be accepted by the media as an unquestioned présidentiable. Hence their exchanges will be read, publicized, taken seriously, and mobilized in the hope of assembling a growing coalition of supporters and donors. In the meantime, they are setting a tone, which they hope will distinguish them from the “rabble” on the extremes.