At the entrance, I played James Bond, spying on the objects in the waiting room: a book about Picasso, a campaign poster of François Mitterrand, a photo of the upcoming new president feeling victory approaching Tulle in March 2011. Then, in the same montage, he smiles on the steps of the Elysee. This smile, often mocked, is ultimately his ultimate weapon.
The door bursts open. François Hollande’s office is luxury, calm, voluptuous, and a huge mess. Mountains of files, books everywhere, a model of the Concorde, Republican Guard helmets, a photo of Jaurès, a painting of Aristide Briand.
The seventh president of the Fifth Republic greets me with a warm “Bonjour, Guillaume.” Dark suit. In the morning, he was on BFM at Apolline de Malherbe’s explaining that the alliances with LFI were over since Quentin Deranque’s murder. Definitively? Hollande knows Mélenchon so well for years: “There is a form of political suicide on his part. When he holds his press conference, still defends Jeune Garde, claims confrontation, he deprives himself of any ability to represent an alternative left. He failed to kill social democracy, it survived and will rebuild. What just happened is a turning point and a cynical tragedy.”
His relationship with LFI definitively ended
Could the judicial process lead him to be summoned by the courts? “It’s not him with blood on his hands. His fault is double: maintaining for years a climate of brutality, disqualification, denunciation, especially of a part of the left, and relatively recently setting up an organization associated with groups that, in French politics, are ultras, under the guise of anti-fascism.”
But what has been his gamble in recent years? “To make it so there is only the far right and him. Not only has the bet been lost, but he has given the far right the possibility to distance itself from its origins, its identitarian trappings. What Marine Le Pen does and even more Bardella, claiming they have nothing to do with extremist movements. While he was inventing a group that would be in street fighting or physical combat. Because the Jeune Garde has existed for a short time. He gave the far right the patent of respectability he ultimately deprived himself of. He is losing the little republican credit he had left.”
Hollande’s Inner Circle, former ministers, are firm: François only thinks of one thing, coming back! “Mr. President, would you take the readers of La Tribune Dimanche for fools?”
François Hollande in the running for 2027?
François Hollande has always accepted a form of disrespect, like Nicolas Sarkozy. It’s their generation. “I am free,” he replies. “I have no revenge to take, and, contrary to what you tell me, I am not obsessed with a comeback. I have only one state of mind, that of taking the state of the country with enough seriousness to not add myself to the others, because, you are right, the list of candidates is becoming ridiculous [currently, a minimum of twenty]. It is up to the French to say who is the best. It may be a personality that brings renewal: Raphaël Glucksmann, or Bernard Cazeneuve, who brings great experience.”
On the left, the idea of a primary election is back on the table. “I am not at all in favor of this primary! In 2011, we opposed Martine Aubry and Manuel Valls, but the differences were minimal. Today, I do not want a primary with personalities I respect but who are not on the path of reformist left: François Ruffin, Clémentine Autain, and Marine Tondelier. In 2027, we will have to vote strategically from the first round to beat RN and access the presidency. The center-right – with Edouard Philippe and his competitors – has the same problematic. “
I point out to him that the Socialist Party, under Olivier Faure, recently played with Jean-Luc Mélenchon the game of Nupes and the New Popular Front. And we didn’t hear him shout about the misalliance. “I refused the Nupes and accepted the New Popular Front only after the dissolution as a barrier against the far right. It was based on the rejection of any brutalization, and that is where LFI shattered this agreement, and our division on the vote of no confidence put an end to the NFP.”
“No relationship” with Emmanuel Macron
President Emmanuel Macron has just made a trip to India. The situation in France is extremely tense. I question him about his relationship with Macron. “We have no relationship. It is not at all my doing. It should have been natural for me to help a former collaborator. I think that each president tries to break with his predecessor. He has forged more with Nicolas Sarkozy than with me.”
What is Emmanuel Macron’s responsibility as president in the current situation? “I think the current disorder is linked to the very beginning of his presidency. Thinking that politics could be done without the major parties is absurd. Today, it’s a field of ruins. Even his own has no consistency. In ten years, the most democratic forces have collapsed in favor of the far right, and, at one point, the radical left. In 2022, there was no campaign, but, since 2018, the Yellow Vests movement, sometimes violent on the Champs-Élysées, showed a completely destabilized state. This power had only been in place for a year. It only recovered for the Covid crisis. However, I recognize Emmanuel Macron’s tireless work to make Europe exist.”
“He does not consider the victory of the RN certain. “Even when you get 35-40% in the first round, you don’t necessarily get 51% in the second,” he insists. “Because even here, the far right faces a world, that of Donald Trump, Putin, and China, which is totally hostile to the interests of France and Europe. There is a fundamental contradiction with their professed nationalism. What is the interest in turning our country over to an accomplice of its destruction? The disintegration for Europe had already begun with Obama. But the style and political orientation were radically different, and the predatory will non-existent.”
For François Hollande, “the far right has not changed”
Swiss psychosociologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) divided humanity into two categories: those who respond to a geometric order (empty offices with just a computer) and those who obey a vital order, a living disorder that is deeply necessary for them. But this vital order that characterizes F.H. showed a lack of authority when he was at the Elysee, dealing with rebels he may have needed to fire, albeit complex. This criticism has a limit as he faced the terrible period of attacks with dignity alongside Valls, Cazeneuve, and even Laurent Nuñez.
He is the only president to have confessed to ordering special services to execute perpetrators. “In a democracy, you have to be willing to get your hands dirty and accept that it will take time,” he explains. His conversation lasted forty-eight minutes. François Hollande is not a dreamer. In the months leading up to 2027, his experience will play a role. But, behind the smile, he knows that his ultimate failure (not being able to run again) could relegate him to the limbo of the Republic. He began to dream of the Elysée in adolescence while watching “L’Heure de vérité” on television. “Not being able to live but one life is like not living at all,” wrote Milan Kundera in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” What would this second life of François Hollande look like?
“Some bosses tend to lean towards the RN because they are increasingly fed up with the folly of the socialists in terms of taxation (F.H. considered during the 2012 campaign a 75% tax to contain Mélenchon’s rise). “Bosses are often inclined to go to whoever they believe is the winner, thinking that this configuration could serve their interests. But the protectionism of the RN, its immigration phobia, including for work, and its fiscal irresponsibility are totally against the interests of the French economy. I learned the lessons of 2012. Today, we would do things differently, by reducing the debt and balancing the efforts required from the wealthiest, but distinguishing them from their companies. It does not necessarily have to be voluminous. Contrary to what one might imagine, it is often the right that increases business taxes.”
The conversation lasted forty-eight minutes. François Hollande is not a dreamer. In the months leading up to 2027, his experience will play a role. But, behind the smile, he knows that his ultimate failure (not being able to run again) could relegate him to the limbo of the Republic. He began to dream of the Elysée in adolescence while watching “L’Heure de vérité” on television. “Not being able to live but one life is like not living at all,” wrote Milan Kundera in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” What would this second life of François Hollande look like?
François Hollande, President of the Republic from 2012 to 2017.
Somewhat discreetly, part of the entrepreneurs is getting closer to the RN because they are increasingly fed up with the madness of the socialists in terms of taxation (F.H. considered during the 2012 campaign a 75% tax to contain the rise of Mélenchon). “Employers are often forced to go to who they believe is the winner, thinking that configuration could serve their interests. But the protectionism of the RN, its immigration phobia, including for work, and its fiscal irresponsibility are totally against the interests of the French economy. I have learned the lessons of 2012. Today, we would do things differently, by reducing the debt and balancing the efforts required from the wealthiest, but distinguishing them from their companies. It does not necessarily have to be voluminous. Contrary to what one might imagine, it is often the right that increases business taxes.”
Our conversation lasted forty-eight minutes. François Hollande is not a dreamer. In the months leading up to 2027, his experience will play a role. But, behind the smile, he knows that his ultimate failure (not being able to run again) could relegate him to the limbo of the Republic. He began to dream of the Elysée in adolescence while watching “L’Heure de vérité” on television. “Not being able to live but one life is like not living at all,” wrote Milan Kundera in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” What would this second life of François Hollande look like?
(Source: The original source has not been mentioned in the provided text.)
