Presidential election 2027: David Lisnard wants to turn the page on the "welfare state" and return power to the territories

Presidential candidate David Lisnard, running in 2027, has outlined his platform: less bureaucracy, less public spending, greater economic freedom, and a state refocused on its core responsibilities. During a trip to Corsica this weekend, the mayor of Cannes also advocated for significant decentralization, arguing that "the centralized state no longer works."

As the 2027 presidential election approaches, David Lisnard intends to establish a unique political position within the right-wing debate. The mayor of Cannes, president of the Association of Mayors of France, and founder of Nouvelle Énergie, is pursuing a decidedly liberal economic program and a decentralizing institutional agenda.

In an interview with the Journal du Dimanche , the candidate offered a stark diagnosis: "The welfare state model is dead." According to him, the French system, largely built during the Trente Glorieuses (Thirty Glorious Years), is no longer suited to the country's economic, demographic, and budgetary realities.

David Lisnard denounces, in particular, the continued increase in public spending and an administration that has become, in his view, too intrusive. He also criticizes the "whatever it takes" policy implemented during the health crisis and, according to him, prolonged well beyond the initial emergency.

“The ‘whatever it takes’ approach has become the ‘whatever it takes’ approach. While our neighbors were cutting back after Covid, we continued to spend our children’s and grandchildren’s money,” he laments.

His plan is based on a clear equation: reducing spending and bureaucracy in order to lower taxes and give more flexibility to the French people and businesses. "I want to ensure that we earn more when we work, which requires contributing less," he explains.

Less administrative state, more sovereign state

Far from advocating the disappearance of the state, David Lisnard instead defends its refocusing. Less present in the regulation of daily life and the economy, but more concentrated on security, justice, borders and major infrastructure.

This philosophy is reflected in his proposals on immigration. The candidate notably wishes to process asylum applications outside of European territory, reinstate the offense of illegal residence, and expel convicted foreigners as well as foreign nationals on the S-list.

"We must stop subsidizing structures that play into the hands of smugglers," he says, arguing for a significantly firmer migration policy.

But one of the main changes proposed by David Lisnard concerns the territorial organization of the country. Present on Saturday, August 8th at the Baracci fair in Olmeto, Corsica, where he has family ties on his mother's side, the president of the AMF elaborated on his vision of decentralization.

His assessment is once again harsh: "the centralized state no longer functions."

Faced with the debate on Corsican autonomy, David Lisnard nevertheless refuses to make numerous promises specific to the island. "I'm not here to pander to 'Corsican identity'," he warns. He acknowledges Corsica's unique historical, cultural, and insular character, but wants to frame his response within a much broader reform of the French state.

His doctrine can be summed up in one formula: "upward subsidiarity". Power should, as far as possible, originate from the ground up.

"We first give power to the municipalities and then, when we need solidarity, more resources, we go back up to the higher entities," explains the mayor of Cannes.

According to David Lisnard, genuine decentralization would even prevent the proliferation of special statuses. Fewer national laws, refocused on fundamental principles, could be accompanied by a much greater transfer of regulatory power to local authorities.

"If the laws were well made, less verbose, more focused on public order provisions, and if regulatory power were transferred to local authorities, there would be no need for special statutes and talk of autonomy," he believes.

A design in which Paris sets the major rules while the territories regain a real capacity for action.

For Corsica, David Lisnard also advocates maintaining national solidarity, particularly regarding infrastructure. He argues that the island's insularity justifies a special effort from the State to guarantee a form of territorial equality.

With less than a year to go before the presidential election, the mayor of Cannes is thus seeking to build his candidacy around a clear ideological coherence: restoring the authority of the State where it is indispensable and reducing its intervention where, according to him, it stifles individual and local initiative.

Faced with traditional promises of new spending, David Lisnard wants to embody another path on the right: that of a less omnipresent but more efficient state, an economy more freed from administrative constraints and a power closer to the municipalities and citizens.

A liberal, decentralizing and sovereign line that he now intends to carry until the presidential election of 2027.