France’s five-time Olympic judo champion Teddy Riner announced on Monday he would run in next year’s presidential election, after expressing concern about the “rise of the far right”.
“The French take the presidential election very seriously, given how much power the office holds. Riner, one of the greatest judokas in history, said in the two-minute-37-second video that he feared France could soon become deeply divided, appearing to cast himself as a candidate for voters unwilling to choose between two political extremes — the far right and the hard left.
“My name is Teddy Riner and today, I am telling you face to face: I am a candidate in the 2027 presidential election,” the 37-year-old said in a surprise announcement on social media. He has no experience in elected office, no party and no detailed programme yet,” she said. If elected president, he said he planned to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics , “if the position allows me to, and if the French people allow me to”.
Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is leading in the polls to replace centrist President Emmanuel Macron next year, with hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon in second place.
“Today we live alongside one another,” said Riner, who comes from the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe. Riner, among France’s best-known sports figures, has publicly said he was very worried about the “rise of the far right”. “I fear that tomorrow we’ll be living in confrontation.
