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Marrakech – French President Emmanuel Macron declared Thursday that he will not pursue any political activity after his presidency ends in 2027. “I didn’t do politics before and I won’t do it after,” he told students at the Franco-Cypriot school in Nicosia during a visit ahead of an informal European summit.
Macron was responding to a student who asked when he first wanted to become president and whether he was still motivated to advance France’s interests. “I have always loved my country and I have always been interested in the life of my country, but that doesn’t make you a president,” he said.
The youngest president elected under the Fifth Republic traced his path to the Élysée as driven by conviction rather than career planning. “I wanted my ideas to become reality. I told myself ‘we can change things faster and stronger,’ and so I launched a political movement and went to the presidency,” Macron explained.
He described his motivation as rooted in passion, not utility. “It’s about fighting for my country and our Europe to move forward and defending values I believe in.”
Macron also acknowledged the difficulty of his final stretch in office after nearly a decade. “The hardest thing after nine years is that you have to keep what you did well and try to go further, but you sometimes have to redo things you got wrong,” he conceded.
His remarks drew immediate skepticism from political observers. Philippe de Villiers, speaking on RMC’s Les Grandes Gueules, argued that Macron meant he would not hold a lower office like François Hollande, who returned as a deputy, or Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who served as a regional president. “He will certainly be tempted in the short to medium term by international functions,” de Villiers predicted.
Lawyer Sandrine Pégand suggested Macron would follow Nicolas Sarkozy’s post-presidency model of lucrative international speaking engagements. Journalist Etienne Campion of Marianne offered a different reading, arguing that Macron was referring specifically to partisan politics.
“He has too high an image of himself to say he will go back to party politics and campaign,” Campion said, while noting that a European Commission presidency could hold some coherence for him.
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Macron’s declaration comes as France’s next presidential race quietly takes shape. Political communications professor Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet noted that the campaign “has started,” with Jordan Bardella exposing his private life in Paris Match and Gabriel Attal publishing a revealing book.
“It’s the right moment for the president, who won’t control much anymore, to announce and prepare his departure,” Moreau-Chevrolet told AFP. “He needs an alternative narrative, while letting speculation about what comes next run its course.”
In the meantime, a minister close to Macron indicated the president remains focused on reindustrialization, artificial intelligence, the defense industry, and international affairs, while leaving domestic governance to the prime minister.
Macron is also expected to give his camp’s eventual presidential candidate room to run – on one condition. “All of this means: be careful, there is my legacy and you are going to carry it,” the minister added.
Others in his camp see a different trajectory entirely. One longtime supporter told RMC he expects Macron to launch a business venture, while confessing he would open a file on his computer titled “Macron 2032” on the night of the next presidential election – the first at which Macron would be constitutionally eligible to run again.
Macron will be 49 when he leaves office, constitutionally barred from a third consecutive term. His presidency was marked by the Yellow Vest crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, a contested pension reform raising the retirement age to 64, and a 2024 dissolution of the National Assembly that left parliament divided into three blocs with no majority.
