France’s former prime minister Gabriel Attal said on Friday he would run for president next year when Emmanuel Macron steps down, becoming the second prominent centrist to challenge the far-right.

“I can’t take this kind of French politics anymore, where it’s just 50 shades of managing decline,” said the 37-year-old, who was France’s youngest prime minister when he served in 2024.

He announced his bid under a blazing sun in the southern village of Mur-de-Barrez – the kind of rural area where France’s centrists hope to strengthen their performance against the far-right National Rally (RN) party.

Attal joins a crowded field of candidates, including 55-year-old Edouard Philippe, an experienced centre-right former prime minister, and hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, 74.

The RN party is banking on its best chance yet at winning power next year, with either Marine Le Pen, or Jordan Bardella, 30, running for the country’s top job.

The newest presidential candidate, an openly gay Parisian educated in top schools, made history when he became France’s youngest ever prime minister at the age of 34.

His meteoric rise in politics has drawn comparisons with Macron, who was 39 when he won the Elysee Palace in 2017, becoming France’s youngest head of state since Napoleon.

Attal will turn 38 next March, just ahead of the presidential election scheduled for April.