Alain Duhamel is a prominent French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 journalist and political commentator.

In 1963, Duhamel started working at Le Monde

Le Monde

Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...

. He started giving talks on Europe 1

Europe 1

Europe 1, formerly known as Europe n° 1, is a privately owned radio network created in 1955. It is one of the leading French radio broadcasters and heard throughout France...

from 1974. He has also written in Libération

Libération

Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...

since 1992, and in Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace

Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace

Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, commonly known as DNA, is a regional daily French newspaper covering the Alsace region. It was created in November 1877 as by German Heinrich Ludwig Kayser....

.

Duhamel has also hosted several television political broadcasts: À armes égales from 1970, Cartes sur table on Antenne 2 from 1978, succeeded by L'Heure de vérité, and eventually 100 minutes pour convaincre from 2002, as well as Question Ouverte. During the French presidential election of 1995

French presidential election, 1995

Presidential elections took place in France on 23 April and 7 May 1995, to elect the fifth president of the Fifth Republic.The incumbent Socialist president, François Mitterrand, did not stand for a third term. He was 78, had cancer, and his party had lost the previous legislative election in a...

, Duhamel, along with fellow journalist Guillaume Durand

Guillaume Durand

Guillaume Durand, or William Durand, , also known as Durandus, Duranti or Durantis, from the Italian form of Durandi filius, as he sometimes signed himself, was a French canonist and liturgical writer, and Bishop of Mende.-Life:He was born at Puimisson, near Béziers, of a noble family of Languedoc...

, hosted the television debate

French presidential debates

French presidential debates traditionally occur between the two rounds of the presidential elections, and are broadcast on TV.- 1974 :The role of TV in French presidential election became prominent after Charles de Gaulle's decision to propose a referendum on the establishment of the election of...

 between Jacques Chirac

Jacques Chirac

Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...

 and Lionel Jospin

Lionel Jospin

Lionel Jospin is a French politician, who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.Jospin was the Socialist Party candidate for President of France in the elections of 1995 and 2002. He was narrowly defeated in the final runoff election by Jacques Chirac in 1995...

.

Duhamel has also worked with RTL from 1999.

In 2006, Duhamel published Les Prétendants 2007, listing 20 likely contendants of the French presidential election of 2007

French presidential election, 2007

The 2007 French presidential election, the ninth of the Fifth French Republic was held to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France for a five-year term.The winner, decided on 5 and 6 May 2007, was Nicolas Sarkozy...

, and notably ignoring Ségolène Royal

Ségolène Royal

Marie-Ségolène Royal , known as Ségolène Royal, is a French politician. She is the president of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council, a former member of the National Assembly, a former government minister, and a prominent member of the French Socialist Party...

. Duhamel persisted to denying that Royal was a likely contendant, even as she rose in popularity. He eventually included a chapter on the pocket edition of the book.

On November 27, 2006, during a talk at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris

Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris

The Institut d'études politiques de Paris , simply referred to as Sciences Po , is a public research and higher education institution in Paris, France, specialised in the social sciences. It has the status of grand établissement, which allows its admissions process to be highly selective...

, Duhamel stated his intention to vote for François Bayrou

François Bayrou

François Bayrou is a French centrist politician, president of Union for French Democracy since 1998 and was a candidate in the 2002 and 2007 French presidential elections. In the first round, he received 18.6% of the vote, finishing in 3rd place and therefore was eliminated from the race....

. A video of the event was released on Dailymotion

Dailymotion

Dailymotion is a video sharing service website, headquartered in the 18th arrondissement, Paris, France. According to Comscore, Dailymotion is the second largest video site in the world after YouTube....

, and Duhamel was suspended from his activities at France 2

France 2

France 2 is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4, France 5 and France Ô...

 and RTL until the end of the campaign.

In 2009, Alain Duhamel released 'La Marche Consultaire', a book which made comparisons between Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....

 and Napoleon Bonaparte I

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

.