French journalist Léa Salamé announced on Monday that she is stepping back from presenting France 2's flagship 8pm evening news bulletin, citing the presidential candidacy of her partner, Raphaël Glucksmann.
Salamé made the announcement in a post on Instagram, describing the decision as both obvious and difficult. She said she would be replaced from Monday by fellow presenter Jean-Baptiste Marteau.
She said she was stepping back from presenting the 8pm news for as long as her partner's candidacy lasted, just as she had done during the previous two European Parliament election campaigns.
What Salamé said
Salamé said that wherever the campaign took her, she would step aside, but that everywhere else she was, remained and would always remain a journalist, one who, before being anyone's partner, was a free and honest woman.
Despite leaving the nightly bulletin, Salamé will keep her Saturday late-evening programme, "Quelle Époque," which returns on 19 September. She said the show would be kept free of political content for the duration of the campaign.
Background on Salamé and Glucksmann
Salamé is a well-known French broadcaster who presents France 2's evening news bulletin. Glucksmann is a Member of the European Parliament and has now declared himself a candidate for France's 2027 presidential election.
This is not the first time Salamé has withdrawn from screen during one of Glucksmann's campaigns. In 2019 and 2024, during his campaigns for the European Parliament, she stepped back from her role at the radio station France Inter, where she was working at the time.
Glucksmann's presidential bid
Related coverage noted that Glucksmann has formally confirmed his candidacy for the 2027 presidential election and is due to take part in the left's primary in October. Green politician Yannick Jadot has since joined his campaign team, a move described as deepening a split within the Greens.
Elsewhere in the 2027 presidential race
Other stories on the same day covered Jean-Luc Mélenchon telling France Unbowed's summer university that victory was possible in 2027.
The French Communist Party held its own summer university in Toulouse, where the gathering's theme was changing the political players and defying predictions of a far-right victory.
Green politician Sandrine Rousseau called for an alliance between the Greens and France Unbowed, saying Marine Tondelier's candidacy was not gaining ground in the polls.
Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel, speaking at his own political rentrée in Toulouse, said taxing the wealthiest would not be enough and proposed a 500-billion-euro recovery plan while defending a standalone Communist candidacy.
Former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said he wanted to regain control over migration policy in Mayotte and to suspend asylum applications there.
And Dominique de Villepin has been trying to win over social media audiences by sharing his musical tastes, though analysis suggested he was struggling to shed his reputation as intellectual and aloof.
