The country’s critical economic situation must be at the forefront of the candidates’ concerns. GDP fell by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2026 and then stagnated at 0.0% in the second quarter, meaning that the French economy has been virtually at a standstill since the beginning of the year.
The state of public finances is also alarming. With public debt now exceeding 115% of GDP and a deficit still above 5%, the question is no longer just what additional spending the candidates are promising the French people, but how they intend to finance their platforms.
A Center Running Out of Road
Representatives from the center and the moderate right have attempted to address this concern by emphasizing spending cuts, job creation and government reform.
Édouard Philippe, Emmanuel Macron’s former prime minister and the candidate for the Horizons party, has advocated for fiscal discipline and a reduction in public spending. Gabriel Attal, also a former prime minister and Renaissance candidate, has placed greater emphasis on employment and the need to reduce labor costs. Bruno Retailleau, the candidate for Les Républicains (LR), on the other hand, advocated for a policy marking a clearer break with the welfare state and public spending.
The message is relatively conventional: France cannot continue to simultaneously finance an exceptionally high level of public spending, a generous social welfare system and persistent deficits. But the political center faces a major challenge. It is associated with the record of the Macron years and must therefore advocate for a certain degree of continuity while acknowledging that the French economic and fiscal model is reaching its limits.
This contradiction is likely to be one of the central themes of the campaign and constitutes a very serious handicap for them, one that their opponents are exploiting. “I continue to admire those who have been in power for ten years and who now have plenty of good ideas that they never actually implemented”, remarked Marine Le Pen, the Rassemblement National (RN) candidate, sarcastically.
Mélenchon’s Debt Bomb?
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for his part, clearly had no intention of reassuring the business community. The leader of La France Insoumise (LFI) advocates a radical transformation of the French economy, based on much greater state intervention, higher taxes and an ecological planning policy. His appearance before business leaders took on particular significance in light of his economic statements in recent days.
Mélenchon has in fact revived the proposal to cancel the portion of France’s public debt held by the Banque de France, which accounts for approximately 18% of the total debt. According to him, this move would create room to maneuver to finance new public spending without immediately passing the cost on to taxpayers.
The proposal has drawn strong criticism from economists and financial circles, as it directly undermines France’s financial credibility and investor confidence. Today, Mélenchon appears to be a particularly worrisome candidate for the business community. His platform is no longer limited to a significant redistribution of wealth or an increase in public spending: he proposes to change the very rules governing debt and public finances.
The situation is all the more serious for employers because Mélenchon can no longer be regarded merely as a protest candidate. His standing in the polls now makes him a credible candidate for the second round. For business leaders, the prospect of a showdown between Mélenchon and Le Pen is therefore no longer merely political fiction.
Le Pen Courts the Bosses
Against this backdrop, Le Pen’s appearance before the MEDEF followed a completely different logic. The RN candidate came to reassure them. For years, the economy has been one of the RN’s main weaknesses in the eyes of business leaders and voters most concerned about competitiveness and public finances. The party, which draws its support from a solid base of working-class voters, remains marked by a strongly statist economic tradition that worries the business community.
Le Pen therefore emphasized the need to control public spending. She presented a plan to cut spending by €125bn ($145.5bn), called for lower expenditure and proposed the introduction of a budgetary golden rule – a national version of the 3% rule imposed at the European level by Brussels – which France is already struggling to meet. She also denounced France’s “regulatory madness” and promised to simplify the administrative environment for businesses.
The message was clear: the RN now wants to be seen as a party capable of governing the state and no longer merely as a party capable of challenging the system.
Yet the contradiction persists. Le Pen’s platform remains deeply interventionist. The candidate is not backing down from her social commitments or from certain costly measures, particularly regarding pensions. The RN therefore remains very far removed from a classical liberal conception of the economy.
In Le Pen’s campaign to win over voters, the presence of LFI on the left serves as a powerful and useful foil for the RN. Compared to Mélenchon, Le Pen can appear much more reasonable than she would have been a few years ago. The comparison works particularly in her favor: when she talks about spending cuts and fiscal discipline after Mélenchon has proposed canceling part of the debt, she can present herself as the candidate of economic responsibility.
Bardella, Le Pen and the Liberal Interlude
In the midst of the MEDEF meetings, the highly publicized departure of the RN’s economic advisor, François Durvye, took on melodramatic overtones. Durvye had become one of the main architects of the RN’s rapprochement with business circles. Close to Jordan Bardella, he had notably helped develop the party’s economic strategy and had prepared Le Pen for the 2022 second-round debate against Macron – a debate in which she suffered a particularly severe defeat.
His departure was interpreted by some as a sign that the RN was abandoning its attempt at economic normalization.
However, that interpretation is perhaps simplistic. This was not a sudden dismissal of a man who sought to liberalize the RN against Le Pen’s will – in fact, the parting was by mutual agreement: Durvye no longer identifies with the economic platform currently championed by the party, while Le Pen no longer wished to continue this collaboration, which had not served her well in the past.
The episode nevertheless reveals a real turn. The transition from Bardella to Le Pen as the presidential candidate is accompanied by an economic shift and internal power struggles. Bardella worked particularly hard to win over business leaders and to give the RN an image more in line with the expectations of economic circles. With Le Pen, the party’s most liberal faction is taking a back seat.
However, it would be an overreaction to view this as a strategic disaster. The RN has not abandoned its desire to reassure businesses and the markets, but it seems less willing to alter its economic identity to achieve this.
The paradox is that the strategy might actually work. An Odoxa poll conducted for Le Figaro shows that Le Pen is now perceived as the most convincing candidate on economic issues. She receives a 36% approval rating, just ahead of Philippe at 35%. She even ranks first across the five economic issues surveyed: debt and public spending, taxation, simplifying regulations for businesses, growth and purchasing power. This result obviously does not mean that the French suddenly view Le Pen as a liberal candidate. Rather, it shows that the RN is narrowing its credibility gap on economic issues.
