In front of around 20,000 supporters gathered at Le Bourget on Saturday, the four-time candidate for the presidential election of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, presented his program and displayed his optimism regarding the outcome of the election in 2027. For his supporters and despite his handicaps, the victory of the rebellious leader is beyond doubt. “We are going to win!”, they chanted several times.

Published on: 07/11/2026 - 19:19

“Here is the force,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon once again insisted on the subject of his movement. With around 20,000 people, according to the organizers, coming to attend the meeting of the leader of La France insoumise at Le Bourget, Saturday November 7, the radical left party once again displayed its militant power, displaying a determination and a certainty of being present on May 2 in the second round of the 2027 presidential election.

Citing the defeats of Viktor Orban in Hungary, Aleksandar Vucic in Serbia, Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United States, Jean-Luc Mélenchon told the crowd: “Our turn to change history. Down with the resignation of the beaten down!”

Also read: “We must dismantle the citadels of this rotten system”, says Mélenchon at Le Bourget

Usually so quick to brush aside the polls, the rebels feel like they are growing wings in this autumn marked by the high school movement and social crises, and are today more than ever convinced that Jean-Luc Mélenchon's fourth candidacy will be the right one.

For several weeks, the polls have systematically placed him in a position to be qualified for the second round against Marine Le Pen (National Rally), with a gap widening over his pursuers such as Raphaël Glucksmann (Place publique-Socialist Party), Édouard Philippe (Horizons) or Gabriel Attal (Renaissance). Whether in 2012, 2017 or 2022, never has the rebellious candidate been so high in voting intentions measured a little less than six months before a presidential election.

"Seeing these polls gives a lot of hope for the future. There had already been a small victory for the New Popular Front in the legislative elections but it had no effect. So it's very important to stay mobilized to qualify and then to convince in the second round," says Mélanie, 26, who came to attend the meeting with friends.

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“I believe in it because, in addition, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is always underrated. The last time in 2022, there was a 10-point difference between what the polls said and the final result on election day,” recalls Islam, 23, while queuing to enter the Le Bourget exhibition center.

“The only one that meets the expectations of high school students”

The social context clearly works in favor of the rebellious candidate. The high school movement and the various angers which have gathered since the end of the summer find a political outlet in the speeches and the program of La France insoumise (LFI), which proposes numerous social measures, particularly aimed at young people.

“When we look at what the other candidates say, it's easy to choose Mélenchon because he's the only one who meets the expectations of high school students,” says Arthur, just 18 years old, who participated in the blocking of his high school in Seine-Saint-Denis and came to the meeting with his candidate's program book under his arm. “I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s very interesting. Investing in social, in health, it’s fabulous,” he says with a big smile.

Because beyond the favorable context and even beyond Jean-Luc Mélenchon's qualities as a tribune, it is also, or even above all, the program of "L'Avenir en commune" which attracts many voters to LFI. Published the day before and sold for 4.90 euros in bookstores, it is the result of work carried out for more than ten years by the rebels and regularly updated. There were 694 measures proposed in 2022. This latest edition includes 1,069.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon is currently the only candidate for the 2027 presidential election to have published his entire program. Asked during the week by France 24 via their entourage to know when they would do the same, none of the other candidates for the Élysée was able to answer. “It’s square here,” the leader of the rebels said again on Saturday afternoon.

Also readAssimilate LFI to the ultra-left, a strategy about to turn against the executive?

The 75-year-old candidate's speech was preceded by a film presenting the main themes of the program, interspersed with sequences where the main figures of La France insoumise highlighted their solutions in terms of ecology, agriculture, economy, education, housing or aging. Staging which notably gave rise to cheers from the mayor of Saint-Denis Bally Bagayoko and MEP Rima Hassan.

"Jean-Luc Mélenchon has the merit of announcing very clearly what he wishes to do if he is elected. This program is an element which allows us to debate what a real disruptive program is. We no longer want this world and this system which gives more money to war and which takes everyone by the throat, from the youngest to the less young like me", testifies Jocelyne, 71 years old.

“That’s what we told Lula too”

Sure of the outcome of the vote, the activists and supporters who came to Le Bourget chanted several times "We're going to win! We're going to win! We're going to win!"

However, can they ignore the pushback effect that their candidate also creates? A good part of the electorate considers some of his statements, such as "the police kill", as excesses and refuses to vote for a candidate considered too divisive. Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the insoumis movement as a whole have also been accused in recent years of playing with the codes of anti-Semitism.

Read alsoJean-Luc Mélenchon enters the campaign in Saint-Denis, a city symbol of his “New France”

Result: 71% of French people say they reject him, according to a study published in Le Figaro in March 2026, while all the polls concerning the second round of the presidential election show him largely beaten by Marine Le Pen.

Even though he said that he would "put no water in his wine" during the coming months, his campaign poster seems to imply the opposite. We see Jean-Luc Mélenchon posing like François Mitterrand and "the quiet force" in 1981, in front of a rural landscape, the site of Gergovie in Auvergne, which he particularly likes. The poster is covered with a slogan recalling the national motto, but the last word of which has been replaced by another: “Liberty, equality, solidarity”.

As for the polls showing him the loser, Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not want to believe it. He remains convinced that he can reverse the trend. “That’s what we told Lula too,” he recalled, before telling his won over audience: “We are going to fight until the last second and in the end, we are going to win!”

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