François Ruffin's last few weeks have shown off his greatest skill: multitasking. In cinema, literature, and of course, as an MP, some politics too. After publishing a book, Itinéraire. Ma France en entier, pas à moitié ("Itinerary. My France as a whole, not half of it"), which caused a sensation by definitively officializing his break with leader of the radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his La France Insoumise (LFI) party, Ruffin is releasing a comedic social documentary, Au boulot! ("Get to work!"), about the upper class's disconnection from society. Eight years after his documentary Merci patron! ("Thanks boss!"), this time, Ruffin thrusts Sarah Saldmann, a controversial lawyer who has regularly railed the welfare state in the media, into the daily woes of minimum-wage earners.

At the moment, Ruffin is equal parts on tour to promote his documentary and at the Assemblée Nationale, where he now sits with the Greens, alongside other former LFI members who have feuded with Mélenchon. Could his new film, even if it is a "political manifesto," in his own words, trigger a new chapter in his political journey? With former prime minister Edouard Philippe having already announced his run for president, with Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen seemingly gearing up for theirs, everyone is now on the lookout for a spectacular act from Ruffin, a man who, in opinion polls, still appears at the top of the list of figures likely to embody the left in the 2027 presidential election.

On Monday, November 4, the self-described "reporter-MP" set aside an hour to answer this capital question, in a café near the Assemblée. Is he thinking about 2027? "Yes," he said, then fell silent. That's it? The question was all the more pressing as Guillaume Ancelet, president of Ruffin's micro-party Picardie Debout!, had told Le Monde, confidently: "François is a conqueror." Yet he's always reluctant to expose himself. After some prodding he finally put it into words: "Of course, it's obvious... 2027 is a card that's on the table," he said, as if his intention had always been known. "There will be no other path than a path of freedom and audacity, to respond to a profound aspiration of the people of the left."

In reality, Ruffin had never explicitly envisaged a presidential candidacy, contenting himself with sending out a few recurrent but ambiguous messages, aimed at the political microcosm and public opinion. This lack of a clear direction had ultimately sowed doubt in the minds of his close associates. In the northern French village of Flixecourt, at his first post-summer political rally, on August 31, he didn't lay out any plans for the future, but rather left the thousand or so activists who had come to applaud him with a sense of unfinished business. Originally, a major announcement had been planned: "There was a path until the evening of June 9. But a number of factors upset that course: The dissolution, the call for a popular front, and a complicated parliamentary election in the face of the RN [the far-right Rassemblement National party] wave," he replied.

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