Le Bourget (France) (AFP) – The French leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon this Saturday called on his supporters not to resign themselves to a victory for the far-right Marine Le Pen in the 2027 presidential election, recalling the recent defeats of Donald Trump and Flávio Bolsonaro.
First modification: 11/09/2026 - 14:36
The French must choose in April and May the successor to the center-right president, Emmanuel Macron. According to the latest polls, Le Pen would win the presidency and Mélenchon would be her rival in the runoff.
"Trump was defeated [in the mid-term legislative elections] in the United States, and Bolsonaro was defeated [in the presidential election] in Brazil. Long live Lula! It is our turn to change history," said Mélenchon, for whom Le Pen's only "idea" is "racism."
Between slogans, anti-fascist songs and calls for victory, the militants of France Insoumise (LFI, radical left) participated with enthusiasm in a packed room at the Le Bourget Exhibition Park, north of Paris.
Before about 20,000 supporters, the 75-year-old veteran politician promised social measures such as an increase in the minimum wage if he comes to power, when hundreds of thousands of people have been demonstrating in France for weeks to demand greater purchasing power and educational improvements.
"I only have one reasonable proposal to make to you (...) Everything must be changed!" launched Mélenchon, who rejected calls to be "less divisive" to increase his chances of reaching the presidency. "I won't do it," he stressed before an audience, mostly young.
On Friday, LFI unveiled its electoral program marked by "ecological planning", such as inscribing in the Constitution a "green rule" that prevents extracting more from nature than it is capable of regenerating.
Among the 1,069 measures in his program are also his usual proposals to abandon nuclear energy or to raise the retirement age again from 64 to 62, eliminating the unpopular pension reform imposed by Macron in 2023.
At the international level, Mélenchon advocated for France, a nuclear power, to abandon the NATO military alliance, and to "build a global non-aligned front," together with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Mexican Claudia Sheinbaum.
In addition to once again denouncing the "genocide" of Palestinians in Gaza, a term that Israel rejects, he also estimated that, in the event that the resolution of the war in Ukraine involves territorial concessions, the population of Donbas - a region largely occupied by Russia - should decide on which country to stay in.
© 2026 AFP
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