Attal opens his 2027 presidential campaign before 5,000 in Paris, breaking with the Macron era

Gabriel Attal opened his presidential campaign on Saturday, May 30, with his first rally at the Parc des Expositions in Paris's Porte de Versailles, drawing roughly 5,000 supporters who chanted "Attal president!" The former prime minister, who declared his candidacy on May 22, framed his bid as a break with the past. "I leave the blood and tears to others; I promise you action and hope," he said -- a line widely read as a jab at his centrist-bloc rival Edouard Philippe.

Attal, who heads President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party, laid out four priorities, beginning with education, which he called "the mother of all battles." He pledged to return France to the top tier of the international PISA rankings within a decade; the late-2023 PISA survey placed French 15-year-olds only at the OECD average, with scores of 474 points in mathematics and reading.

His other priorities were wages and purchasing power -- to be lifted by boosting business and investing in research and innovation -- tighter border controls, and artificial intelligence. "A country that no longer controls its borders no longer controls its destiny," he said, vowing to "welcome fewer people in order to welcome them better," a clear bid to recover voters who have drifted to the right. On technology, Attal promised to make France Europe's leader in AI and quantum, warning that if the National Rally took power "France will miss the AI revolution as it largely missed the digital revolution of the 2000s," and calling for "a trustworthy AI."

Attal cast La France Insoumise and the National Rally as his "adversaries," declining to use the word for his common-bloc rivals Edouard Philippe and Bruno Retailleau, and urged the French not merely to block but to "submerge" those he called "merchants of hate" and "apostles of decline." Jean-Luc Melenchon hit back on X, objecting to the label: "An electoral campaign is not a brawl in the mud." Attal also vowed to make France "Europe's leading power" again within a decade and to halve the country's greenhouse-gas emissions over the next ten years.

The 37-year-old, who served as prime minister from January to September 2024 -- the youngest in French history and the first openly gay holder of the office -- has worked to distance himself from Macron since the president's surprise 2024 dissolution of parliament, a decision taken without consulting Attal that ultimately cost him Matignon. During the autumn 2025 political crisis he said publicly that he "no longer understands" Macron's decisions, accusing his former mentor of "wanting to hold onto power" despite losing the snap elections. The latest polls place Attal fourth at 13 percent, behind far-right National Rally candidate Jordan Bardella, the center-right's Edouard Philippe, and La France Insoumise's Jean-Luc Melenchon. The first round is set for April 2027.