Jean-Luc Mélenchon unveiled his "A Shared Future" manifesto for the 2027 presidential election at a rally in Le Bourget on Saturday, refusing to moderate his radical left-wing positions.
The France Unbowed leader addressed over 20,000 supporters at Le Bourget, north of Paris, where François Hollande delivered his famous 2012 campaign speech. Mélenchon began his hour-long address with a minute's silence for Pengo Bossio Wangi, a 26-year-old victim of a racist attack in Trappes. He called for a "cultural liberation" of France against what he termed "fascist culture" and a "social state of emergency".
Mélenchon explicitly rejected calls to soften his stance. "Commentators advise me to water down my positions to attract voters and be less divisive. I will not do that," he said. He told the crowd: "I have only one reasonable thing to propose: everything must change," adding that moderation would be "a political maneuver that would convince nobody and disgust everybody, myself first of all." At the rally, he dismissed predictions of defeat in a second round against Marine Le Pen, saying: "Yes, that's what they said about Lula too. We will fight until the very last second."
The manifesto, titled "L'Avenir en commun" and on sale in bookshops since Friday, promises sweeping economic and institutional change. Mélenchon pledged higher wages, price controls, the reversal of pension reform, lowering the voting age to 16 and creating a Sixth Republic. On the environment, he called for a "new ecological state" based on planning and a mixed economy, replacing administrative regions with "eco-regions" organized around water resources. The party also committed to a gradual phase-out of nuclear power, pushing the target for 100 percent renewable energy from 2050 to 2060.
Mélenchon, making his fourth bid for the presidency, polls at around 18 percent, firmly in second place behind Marine Le Pen, who stands at between 35 and 37 percent. Most Communist and overseas-territories MPs in the National Assembly formally backed his candidacy on Thursday, despite Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel also running. The Greens are expected to decide in mid-December on a possible alliance with France Unbowed. The rally took place amid widespread social unrest, with secondary school students protesting over the cost of living and public services.
On foreign policy, Mélenchon said France has nothing to seek in NATO or American wars and must build a front of non-aligned countries. He also pledged to take direct action against Israeli annexation of the West Bank and what he called Israel's genocide in Gaza if elected president.
Marine Le Pen and Édouard Philippe attacked the France Unbowed programme ahead of Saturday's rally. Le Pen posted on X that she opposed what she called a "plan to dismantle France".
