Best French Fifth Republic Presidents

Charles de Gaulle leads with an ELO of 1,447, ahead of Jacques Chirac (1,307) and François Mitterrand (1,251). Ranked over 1,072 duels between 8 contenders, last updated October 6, 2026.

Rank the presidents of the French Fifth Republic by charisma.

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.