Melenchon takes on the EU

by Stefano Porciello

Jean-Luc Mélenchon had the EU in his sights as the French far-left leader kicked off his 2027 national presidential election campaign on Sunday.

“The European treaties are obsolete,” he told a crowd that filled the central square of Saint Denis, a highly-populated leftist stronghold north of Paris.

Mélenchon accused Europe of moral failure on migration and what he described as “complicity” with the Israeli government in a likely reference to the war on Gaza.

He said it is time for France to put a stop to the long negotiated free trade agreements reached by the EU with the Mercosur South American countries and India, as well as refusing “the war economy”.

Mélenchon also promised a “moratorium” on all laws that, he believes, run against the mandate of the French people, citing EU rules on posted workers and the imports of agricultural goods made with products forbidden in France.

“Let us also see in the depth of the EU’s crisis an opportunity to finally propose a Europe free from the destructive principles of liberalism,” he said.

Mélenchon, who promised to fix the domestic policy “damages” of the liberal president Emmanuel Macron, also had Washington in his crosshairs.

He called for a “digital decolonisation” from the US, adding that the French people must be fully sovereign over their data and new AI systems.

The far-left French leader has good chances of passing the first turn of France’s two-round voting system.

According a recent survey published by Le Parisien, he is currently polling at around 13%, fighting with the centre-left and centrist candidates for second place in the first round of voting.

A success for Mélenchon, however, is likely to let the right-wing populist National Rally, RN, of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella win the second and final election round, where only the two top-ranking candidates challenge each other.

The RN is polling above 30%, far ahead of any other contender, making its participation in the final ballot very likely – if not virtually certain.

Yet, the crowd that attended the far-left leader rally under the sun did not seem daunted by the challenges ahead.

“We will win, we will win,” his supporters shouted in the run up to Mélenchon’s address, which closed on the notes of the French national anthem – the Marseillaise – and the traditional communist song The Internationale.

*Published first on Euractiv.com