Teddy Riner candidacy 'illustrative of this hunger for an alternative' to Le Pen or Mélenchon

Here in France, some smirked on Monday when five-time Olympic heavyweight judo champion Teddy Riner announced he was running for president as a moderate, a 37-year-old political novice. Yes, Riner regularly tops popularity polls among French people, but he's never run for public office. After his announcement of those, some looked at... The polling, which had been done on Riner if he'd run as a candidate, and showed that he was as high as 18% last year under the hypothesis that he would throw his hat in the ring. Among those supporting him was another political novice when he first ran for president, Emmanuel Macron, back in 2017. In any case, I'm very happy that someone like Teddy Riner, who is a great champion, has decided to get involved in this presidential debate and bring his convictions, ideas and talent to it. This can only be good for the country. And that brings us to our spotlight segment. Joining us from Ben Gurir in Morocco, Lex Paulson, Professor of Collective Intelligence at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. Thank you for joining us here on France 24. Lex, when you think back to 2017, when you supported an Emmanuel Macron who had never run for office, but had served as finance minister and in several posts in cabinets, did you at the time worry about lack of electoral politics experience? And is it the same problem with Teddy Riner? Yeah. I mean, something's changed in politics over the last decade. The term attention economy. That really the currency of politics now is no longer just money to be able to buy TV ads or open offices. It's the ability to capture attention. And so this is giving opportunities to new entrants into politics who don't necessarily have the traditional connections to parties, but who have the ability to get the attention of a lot of people very quickly. Macron had kind of an entrepreneurial mentality to politics and was interested in building a new movement outside the Socialist Party. He wasn't necessarily the most media savvy or social media savvy, but someone like Teddy Riner definitely would fit the category of someone who's already a celebrity and knows how to keep the attention of people in a very fragmented media environment. So he starts there with some important advantages, I would say. Fragmented media environment, fragmented field for those elections, which are due to take place first round in April, second round May the 2nd. Right now, it's the far right, Marine Le Pen, far ahead. Number two, the far left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and all the mainstream candidates are slipping further and further in the polls. Yeah. And I mean, it's interesting because just recently the poll that came out today that showed, as you say, that the candidates in the middle, Edouard Philippe, Gabriel Attal, Bruno Retailleau and Glucksmann are all somewhere between. Seven and 12 points. If you add them together, that's a big chunk of French society that doesn't want to vote for Mélenchon or Le Pen. Basically, a third of French voters do not. And these are voters who have seen Le Pen and Mélenchon run for many, many years. And so if they're not voting for them now, they probably aren't interested in voting for them. So that gives a real opportunity. But as you say, right now, there's not a single candidate in the center that is dominating the discussion of what's the alternative to. Can he win? I don't think he's in the best position to win, no. Crazier things have happened. Not many people would have given Barack Hussein Obama a chance to win the U.S. presidential election in 2006, 2007, and he came out and surprised a lot of people. In this case, I haven't seen yet that Teddy Riner has a real sense of why he wants to be president beyond just wanting to serve and help. I think it's very interesting that he has spoken out about the problem of racism and xenophobia. That clearly seems to inspire him, but when reporters asked him, well, what's your plan for France? What do you want to do? He didn't seem to know much of what kind of policy positions he would take. I mean, there's time to build those, but usually you would want to have those ready if you're going to announce for president. So no, I don't think he has necessarily struck me as a serious candidate in that respect, but he is, I think, illustrative of this hunger for alternatives And he certainly can have an impact on the debate. Many candidates. who don't win end up reshaping the political debate because of their ability to get attention. And so I think Riner is very well positioned in that respect. Teddy Riner who's talked also in the last 24 hours just on social media about affordability? He's talked about justice, the concept of the justice serving the republic, these sort of judo kind of values that he's put forth, as well as, as you say, anti-racism. Why is it so difficult for the mainstream candidates to capture the public's attention with a platform that's also a vision? Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question. I like that you also point out the connection to his judo training. I think something we saw in the American elections with folks like James Tallarico is a deep connection between the message of a campaign and the personal biography of a candidate. I think that's right for France and for French politics as well, that voters don't Don't vote for policies. Voters vote for people that. Uh, they sense we'll stand up for them. That is the number one thing that drives voter behavior, not just in America, but all over the world. And if people look at someone like Teddy Reiner and they can understand where he's coming from, they see his values, they see who he stands for, that's the kind of politician I think that's going to win this election. I think right now, with people like Le Pen and Mélenchon, people don't know necessarily about their biographies, but they know where they stand and who they stand for. And that's very clear. And I think for the candidates in the center, that's the challenge. It's connecting their personal story as a candidate, whether it's Edouard Philippe as a mayor or Attal as a mayor. As a, you know, openly first, openly gay president, potentially that's something that's personal to them and their values connects with what the country is hungry for. That's the central narrative function of a presidential campaign. And I think that's what that's what the public is hungry for right now. One final question for you Lex. A year ago you looked at the results of local elections in France and you got the sense that after the Macron years, people wanted a return to old school politics. That is to say politicians who know how to forge coalitions between different traditional parties. And yet now here we are in a presidential election where the parties seem weaker than ever. Why? Yeah, I think it's because of a dissatisfaction with an entire system of governance that is very distant from people. People don't feel like they're being listened to except for in the few weeks before an election. They feel like politicians are a permanent class. They add mandates in all these different mandats and casquettes. And I think that's really what's driving the populist right and to some degree the populist left is that voters are looking for people who are as different as possible from the politicians who are governing. I think in the local races, it was a bit of a reaction against the government in Paris and mayors remain the most popular politicians in France. But I think on the whole, this dissatisfaction with the system is what's driving the fragmentation of the political landscape and the loss of confidence in the traditional parties I think the smartest politicians right now are talking about not just how to solve the cost of living crisis and the immigration crisis, but how to remake governance in France to bring it closer to people and give people more of a voice. I think not many politicians have good ideas of how to do that, but I think that's where the real opportunity is in the coming years in France. Lex Paulson, many thanks for joining us here on France 24. Good to be with you.