Ahead of the 2027 presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, likely La France insoumise candidate, builds the 'new France' concept to counter the far right. Launched in 2018 at meetings in Epinay-sur-Seine, this national narrative highlights popular neighborhoods as a bulwark against racism and division.
On November 18, 2018, in Epinay-sur-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Jean-Luc Mélenchon attends the first 'national meetings of popular neighborhoods,' eighteen months after Emmanuel Macron's election. Having missed the 2017 presidential runoff by nearly 600,000 votes, he tells neighborhood actors: 'I am not afraid, I am not ashamed to say it: what you see here is the new France.' This slogan has since embedded in La France insoumise (LFI) ideology.
In 2024, during the European elections campaign, marked by jurist Rima Hassan's denunciation of the Gaza war, Mélenchon revives the theme. On June 6, at a Lyon rally, he states: 'This new France is us, the motley, the mixed who absolutely refuse the venom that allows them to stay in power – the division of the people by racism.' On election night, he specifies that this 'new France' concerns 'large urban housing estates.'
Mélenchon plans to wield this concept as a weapon against the far right for 2027. LFI MEP Younous Omarjee explains: 'There are two visions, that of the right and the far right, which leads straight to confrontations; against that, we offer an optimistic, positive vision of history by saying there is a peaceful outlet.' This narrative, more resonant in a left that has abandoned identity issues, raises questions about its fracturing potential.
