What if the question of 2027 was not what the French hope for, but what they fear losing?
There is already much talk of candidates, polls, strategies and alliances. But behind this electoral machinery, something deeper is unfolding.
I do not believe 2027 will simply be an ideological election.
I think it could be an emotional one. More precisely, an election structured by fear.
Not only the fear of immigration or insecurity, which occupy an important place in public debate.
A much broader fear.
Fear of losing one’s standard of living.
Fear of unemployment.
Fear of war.
Fear of debt.
Fear of paying even more tax.
Fear of no longer being able to house oneself.
Fear of downward mobility.
Fear of artificial intelligence.
Fear of climate change.
Fear of seeing one’s children live less well than oneself.
And behind all these fears, there may be a deeper one still: the fear of no longer being in control of one’s own life.
The French have long stopped believing that politics will change their lives
Let us be honest: it has been a long time since the political promise to “change things” inspired anyone. Almost no one believes it. Alternations follow one another. So do reforms. The speeches change. Governments come and go. And yet, for many people, the problems remain and grow worse.
The feeling that has taken hold is therefore no longer merely: “Politics changes nothing.”
It has become harder: “Politics can mainly make things worse.”
A new tax.
A new rule.
A new reform.
A new constraint.
A new expense.
A new crisis.
And always this impression that the effort demanded ends up falling on the same people.
This is a fundamental difference.
People no longer necessarily ask politics to make life extraordinary.
They sometimes simply ask it not to make life more complicated.
And that says a great deal about the state of our democracy.
The real problem is no longer only purchasing power. It is the feeling of losing one’s freedom.
Take the tax question.
The problem is not only the amount of tax. It is the relationship between what one pays and what one receives. When one pays taxes, social contributions, levies, ever more expensive energy, insurance, and accumulating constrained expenses, one accepts this on condition of understanding the contract. One contributes to the community. In exchange, one expects efficient public services, protection, infrastructure, a school system that works, accessible healthcare, a justice system that delivers decisions within acceptable timeframes.
But when citizens feel they are paying ever more to obtain, at times, less, something breaks.
Many then speak of a “racket”.
This is not a legal definition of tax. It is a political feeling. And that feeling deserves to be heard.
Because a citizen who pays more but must wait months for certain treatments, who encounters administrative difficulties, who sees some public services deteriorate and who must at the same time absorb the rise in everyday expenses may end up asking:
“What is the point of all these levies if my life is becoming more difficult anyway?” That question is explosive.
And then there is petrol
The symbolic weight of the fuel price is often underestimated. For some people, the car is not an ideological choice. It is how they get to work. How they take the children. How they do the shopping. How they reach their family. How they live. So when the price of petrol rises, it is not simply a few more euros at the pump. It is an additional constraint on a freedom already reduced.
And that is precisely why economic issues have become deeply emotional political issues.
Citizens no longer look only at their salary. They look at what is left.
And when, at the end of the month, they see that their pay has risen more slowly than their expenses, they do not reason in terms of macroeconomic statistics.
They simply say: “I work. I pay. And yet I have less room than before.”
Downward mobility is not necessarily poverty
This is where political debate sometimes makes a mistake.
Downward mobility does not necessarily mean becoming poor. It can mean being afraid of becoming so. Or simply feeling that one has dropped a floor.
No longer being able to buy the home one thought one could buy.
No longer being able to offer one’s children the same opportunities.
Postponing a project.
Giving up certain holidays.
Watching every expense.
Working more without the sense of moving forward.
These are different situations, but they produce the same sensation: “I am doing what is required and yet I am falling behind.” That sentence is probably far more political than we think.
And the outside world is no longer reassuring
To this economic anxiety is added a geopolitical unease.
War has returned to Europe’s doorstep. Tensions among the great powers are intensifying. Economic balances are shifting. Energy and industrial dependence has become a matter of security.
And a question imposes itself: who protects us when the world becomes dangerous?
The question is no longer abstract. It touches energy, employment, the price of raw materials, defence, our industry, our sovereignty.
Economic fear and geopolitical fear thus begin to meet.
Then comes artificial intelligence
And as if that were not enough, a technological revolution is upending work. Artificial intelligence can create enormous wealth. But it raises a question that politics will sooner or later have to face: “Who will benefit from this wealth, and who will pay the price?”
Because behind the enthusiastic talk of innovation, there are employees wondering whether their job will still exist tomorrow. Young people questioning the value of their degrees. Companies that do not yet know which skills they will need to recruit in five years. AI is therefore not only a technological revolution. It is a social revolution that touches something far more intimate: our sense of being useful.
Even the ecological transition can become a source of anxiety
Here again, the issue is not whether we must act against climate change. The question is: how to make the necessary transformations acceptable to a population that already feels it is under enough constraint?
Changing one’s car.
Renovating one’s home.
Changing one’s habits.
Paying more for certain forms of energy.
Accepting new rules.
For someone who already feels they have no margin left, each new constraint can be experienced as a further assault. This is where politics will have to be extremely intelligent. Because one does not make a worried society accept a historic transformation by simply telling it that it must make yet another effort.
So yes, 2027 could be an election of fear
But not necessarily the fear of the other. The fear of losing.
Losing one’s standard of living.
Losing one’s job.
Losing one’s security.
Losing one’s home.
Losing one’s bearings.
Losing one’s freedom.
Losing the possibility of passing something on to one’s children.
And above all losing this already very fragile conviction that the efforts consented to today will actually serve some purpose tomorrow.
That is why I believe 2027 could be less a battle between great ideologies than a battle around a much simpler question: who is capable of reassuring without lying?
Because promising that everything will be fine will no longer work. The French are politically experienced enough to know that miracles do not exist.
But asking them for ever more effort in the name of a better future without explaining concretely when and how that future will arrive will not work either.
The candidate who wins may not be the one who promises the most. It could be the one who best understands the collective fatigue.
The fatigue of paying.
The fatigue of adapting.
The fatigue of enduring successive crises.
The fatigue of seeing services deteriorate.
The fatigue of constantly having to make an effort.
The fatigue of hearing that everything is complicated, that everything is global, that everything is the fault of a previous crisis and that, in the end, no one can really act.
For there is something deeply political in this fatigue. And something dangerous too. A democracy cannot function durably if its citizens no longer believe that power can improve things.
But it can function even less if they come to believe that power can mainly prevent them from living normally. That may be where the real stake of 2027 lies. Not simply convincing the French that a candidate is right.
But giving them back something far rarer: the sense that they still have a hold on their future.
And perhaps the 2027 presidential election will not, in the end, be the election of the one who promises to build the best world. It will be that of the one who can answer a far more urgent question:
“How do you guarantee that tomorrow I will not live less well than today?”
And what if that, in the end, were the real fear of 2027? Not of losing an election. But of losing the future.
Sihem Souid