On one side, Jordan Bardella's National Rally, the clear favourite in the polls with 38 % of voting intentions in the first round. On the other, a so-called \u00abgoverning\u00bb right embodied by Bruno Retailleau, designated as the LR candidate on 19 April 2026 with 73.8 % of members' votes, but polling at only 10-13 % in national surveys. Between the two, a nebula of actors: Ciotti, Wauquiez, de Villiers, Zemmour, Marion Mar\u00e9chal, who fuel the debate without steering its course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is at stake is not merely an election. It is the very definition of what the French right is in the 21st century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jordan Bardella is establishing himself as the political phenomenon of the moment. According to an IFOP-FIDUCIAL poll from March 2026, he is credited with 36 to 38 % of voting intentions in the first round of the 2027 presidential election depending on the scenarios, scores higher than those Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand and Nicolas Sarkozy recorded before their respective elections. Among RN sympathisers, 97 % consider him a good candidate, compared with 88 % for Marine Le Pen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His manifesto is structured around three unwavering pillars: purchasing power, security and immigration. On immigration, he advocates abolishing birthright citizenship, reinstating the offence of illegal residence, systematically deporting foreign offenders and abolishing state medical aid, replacing it with \u00abvital emergency aid\u00bb. On security: mandatory minimum sentences, the abolition of the minority mitigation rule, mandatory use of formal address (\"vous\") for teachers and a ban on mobile phones at school. On the economy: a cut in VAT on energy, a moratorium on wind power and support for nuclear energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet the Bardella equation remains hanging by a thread: Marine Le Pen's appeal judgment, expected on 7 July 2026. Convicted at first instance to a five-year ban from holding public office with provisional enforcement in the FN parliamentary assistants case, she is currently ineligible to run. If the court of appeal upholds the sentence, Bardella becomes the natural candidate. If it overturns it, an internal duel between the two RN figures is not ruled out, even though, according to Odoxa, 44 % of French people would prefer Bardella over Marine Le Pen to represent the RN, compared with 37 % for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, a March 2026 poll warns that if \u00c9douard Philippe were to reach the second round, he would beat Bardella 52 % to 48 %. Dominating the first round does not guarantee ultimate victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 19 April 2026, members of The Republicans party made their decision: Bruno Retailleau is the party's candidate for the presidential election. He was chosen directly without a primary, with 73.8 % of the votes cast, on a turnout of 60 % out of roughly 76,000 members. The result is clear-cut. However, it leaves internal divisions fully intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Laurent Wauquiez voted blank and denounced a \u00abfool's game\u00bb. David Lisnard slammed the party door to launch out on his own. Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Cop\u00e9 is brandishing the threat of a \u00abschism\u00bb. Xavier Bertrand is preparing his own candidacy. And Michel Barnier is pleading for a \u00abconclave\u00bb bringing together the entire right and centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Retailleau chose security as his opening theme. From Nanterre, his first campaign visit, he promised an \u00abanti-trafficking state of emergency\u00bb, lockdown operations and increased use of gendarmerie resources. The objective is clear: to win back the ground occupied by the RN on law and order, without leaving the fold of the republican right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it is on the birth rate that he strikes his boldest blow. In an interview granted to AFP, he announced that, if elected, he wanted to \u00abshake up the natural order of things\u00bb. On 30 April 2026, he launched an appeal on the X network: \u00abI will launch a major family and pro-natalist policy.\u00bb Retailleau directly targets Fran\u00e7ois Hollande for having \u00abcalled into question the universality of family allowances\u00bb and criticises the inaction of the Macron era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The demographic context gives it a real foothold: in the first quarter of 2026, 154,932 babies were born, representing a decrease of 1.8 % compared to the same period in 2025, alongside 174,024 deaths. The natural increase remains persistently negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Demography has become the cross-cutting theme that structures the discourse of all factions of the right. And for good reason: INSEE data are unprecedented in their severity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2025, 645,000 babies were born in France, which is 24 % fewer than in 2010, the year of the last birth peak. At the same time, 651,000 deaths were recorded. The natural balance is negative by 6,000 people: a first since the end of the Second World War. The total fertility rate stands at 1.56 children per woman, its lowest level since 1918, that is, since the end of the First World War. The average age at childbirth reaches 31, compared with 29 in 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France, long considered the European exception regarding birth rates\u2014it still recorded 2 children per woman in 2010\u2014has joined the continent's general trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was Philippe de Villiers who translated these figures with the most virulence. In an interview with the JDD in December 2025, he stated: \u00ab2027 will be France\u2019s last chance.\u00bb He spoke of a demographic crossover, of a France where the new slogan is \u00abNo Kids\u00bb, and concluded: \u00bbBy 2032, it will be too late.\u00ab His book Populicide (Fayard, 2025) has exceeded 400,000 copies, according to the Edistat institute. Jordan Bardella's book has accumulated 320,000 copies, and Sarkozy's 200,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This editorial explosion of the identitarian right is a barometer: it is not merely a commercial phenomenon, it signals a deep social demand for structuring narratives about national identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Demographers are nevertheless toning down the alarmism. A study by the Centre d'observation de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 points out that the ultimate fertility rate of women born in 1980 stands at 2 children, close to the level required for generational replacement. The drop in the period fertility indicator partly reflects a calendar effect: women are having their children later, not necessarily fewer of them. The reasons cited by couples are multiple and largely economic: the cost of housing, job insecurity and climate uncertainties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00c9ric Ciotti repr\u00e9sente la tentative la plus frontale d’effacer la fronti\u00e8re entre la droite r\u00e9publicaine et l’extr\u00eame droite. Ancien pr\u00e9sident des R\u00e9publicains, il fut exclu du parti apr\u00e8s avoir conclu une alliance \u00e9lectorale avec le RN en 2024. Il a alors fond\u00e9 l’Union des droites pour la R\u00e9publique (UDR) et rejoint le camp de Marine Le Pen pour 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His book Je ne regrette rien (Fayard, June 2025), written according to \u00abLa Lettre\u00bb by a ghostwriter close to the Bollor\u00e9 ecosystem, sums up his trajectory. He embodies the unapologetic shift towards what political scientists call the \u00abnational bloc\u00bb: a right wing that no longer distinguishes between republican conservatism and identity nationalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He now has a strong local base in Nice, which he built alongside his presidential commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dream of a union of the right, stretching from LR to Reconqu\u00eate via the UDR and the RN, regularly excites commentators. It comes up against several realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the RN side, Bardella himself says he does not believe in a broad union of the right for 2027, judging that the French right no longer exists today. His party prefers to capitalise on its dominance in the polls rather than risk diluting it in an unstable alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the LR side, the sticking point is strategic: those pushing for a broad alliance with the centre are banking on a ticket capable of competing with \u00c9douard Philippe in the second round. Retailleau and his supporters believe that a right wing that dissolves into the centre loses its identity and disappears electorally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Institute of Hope, a think tank launched in 2025 within Vincent Bollor\u00e9's orbit, is attempting to lay down a common ideological infrastructure: its manifesto advocates for a reduction in immigration, the return of school uniforms, and the abolition of the offence of obstructing abortion. A cross-cutting programme that reflects the real convergences between these groups, even if personal rivalries remain intense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Behind the war of figures and candidacies, it is a shared thematic agenda that all the right-wing factions are fighting over:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Immigration: a central theme for the RN (abolition of birthright citizenship, referendum), echoed by Retailleau (state of emergency, deportations) and exploited by de Villiers (\u00abutilitarian migrationism\u00bb). The 2024 immigration law has already tightened birthright citizenship, but the radical right considers these measures insufficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Birth rates and the family are the point of convergence between Retailleau (pro-natalist plan), de Villiers (Populicide) and the entire conservative right. The figures provide them with real ground: 1.56 children per woman, natural increase negative for the first time since 1945.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regarding authority and security, Bardella wants minimum mandatory sentences and the end of the minority excuse; Retailleau wants an anti-trafficking state of emergency; Ciotti is calling for a return to sovereign order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regarding European sovereignty, the RN wants to negotiate opt-outs in Brussels and opposes the asylum and migration pact; de Villiers is calling for Brussels to be disobeyed; Retailleau wants a distinct right wing that does not dissolve into technocratic Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is at stake on the right before 2027 is not a simple electoral competition. It is the deep-seated reorganisation of a political space that has not found its equilibrium since the disappearance of Gaullism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The RN is holding its ground with a historic poll lead: never since the post-war period has a political force posted such first-round scores a year before an election. But the judicial unknown of 7 July, the question of the second run-off against \u00c9douard Philippe, and the classic volatility of voting intentions twelve months out from an election temper any prediction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LR is trying to survive around Retailleau, but its reduced activist base\u201476,000 members for an internal vote\u2014and its internal fractures (Wauquiez, Lisnard, Bertrand) are limiting its national momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between these two poles, a galaxy of figures\u2014Ciotti, de Villiers, Knafo, Marion Mar\u00e9chal\u2014embodies a radical right that no longer seeks to govern from the centre, but to overturn the republican software itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question is not just about who will win on the right. It is about whether the French right is still capable of governing or if it is condemned to be, for a long time yet, the reservoir of a protest that has never found the words for power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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