For such a polite, well-bred young man, Bruno Le Maire has a lot of nerve. The conservative deputy in the National Assembly, a former high-ranking civil servant and former cabinet minister, had the effrontery to challenge ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy for leadership of Sarkozy's party in 2014. He amazed everyone by winning nearly 30 per cent of the vote.

Sarkozy has since changed the party’s name to Les Républicains or “LR”.  (Nothing like a name-change to make people forget a financial scandal.) Now Le Maire is about to challenge Sarkozy again, by launching his campaign for the LR presidential primary next November.

Sarkozy wants a rematch with François Hollande, who defeated him in 2012. But polls show 80 per cent of the French hate the idea of having to choose between the same two losers.

Former prime minister Alain Juppé is streaks ahead of Sarkozy in polls, and Le Maire is running a distant third, but that hasn't discouraged him. He has made 317 campaign trips in France since 2012.

"All over Europe, people my age hold high office," Le Maire says.  "I'm 46 years old. I feel I've arrived at an equilibrium between experience and energy. My moment has come. I'm ready."

Le Maire considers the half dozen other candidates in the LR primary “competitors” rather than “adversaries”, the term he reserves for Hollande. I asked him why he would be a better presidential candidate than his former boss, Sarkozy.

‘Nothing personal’

“It’s nothing personal,” Le Maire replies. “I just think France aspires to something different. Look how popular [the economy minister, 38-year-old] Emmanuel Macron is. It’s not based on his results. It’s because the French want to to turn the page.”

Sarkozy and Hollande are 61 years old; Juppé is 71. “People think political power is locked down in this country,” Le Maire says. “I want a new generation to assume responsibility.”

Le Maire reserves his harshest criticism for Hollande. “If the president of the Republic had any dignity, he would not stand for re-election,” he says, citing Hollande’s failure to fulfil his promise to “reverse the curve of unemployment”. He fears the “morphine drip” of a weak euro, low interest rates and low petroleum prices will enable Hollande to create the illusion the economy is improving.

Le Maire’s rhetoric is dyed-in-the-wool conservatism. “I do not believe in a welfare state that distributes aid everywhere, never stops expanding and has no authority,” he says.  He wants to “let businesses make money, so people can find jobs . . . restore national education, break trade union control over teachers”.

Every year, Le Maire says, 45,000 immigrants stay in France after their asylum applications are rejected. He would ensure they leave within six months, and disqualify welfare payments from being counted as resources for immigrants seeking to bring family members into the country.

‘Sword of Damocles’

The extreme right-wing leader

Marine Le Pen

“is the sword of Damocles over all our heads”, Le Maire says.  “I worry about the anger of the French people. We must get results quickly.”

Le Maire is critical of French policy in Syria. "We're bombing and killing civilians, but we're not eliminating Islamic State. We're feeding the threat, and we're stuck with Islamic State for years to come," he says. "My experience as a diplomat taught me that war without a policy is always a failure."

Much as he admires David Cameron and George Osborne – “France should follow their example,” he says – Le Maire is enraged by EU concessions to London. “How can we give Great Britain a say in the euro zone and Schengen when they’re in neither? We’re rushing into a European Waterloo, with the complicity of Angela Merkel and François Hollande. We won’t prevent a Brexit, but we will weaken Europe.”

The greatest responsibility for weakening Europe lies with France, says Le Maire, a former minister for European affairs.

“To build a strong Europe, there’s no alternative to the Franco-German partnership,” he explains.

“And there’s no more France, because France doesn’t follow European rules. How can you be respected when you don’t obey the rules, when you’re still at 5 per cent deficit spending, when unemployment is going down everywhere except in France?”

Le Maire says he wants to "blow up" the stranglehold of the énarques – graduates of the elite école nationale d'administration – over the French administration.

But wait a minute, I say, aren't you an énarque? Yes, he admits, but he resigned from his permanent status in the foreign ministry. "The only way to overthrow the technocrats is to come from within the system."