La France Insoumise

La France Insoumise (LFI or FI; French:

The party nominated Mélenchon as its candidate for the 2017 French presidential election. He came fourth in the first round, receiving 19.6% of the vote and failing to qualify for the second round by around 2%. After the 2017 French legislative election, it formed a parliamentary group of 17 members of the National Assembly, with Mélenchon as the group's president. In the 2019 European Parliament election in France, it won six seats, below its expectations.

In 2022, Mélenchon again became the party's candidate for president, and later Christiane Taubira, winner of the 2022 French People's Primary, endorsed Mélenchon. In the first round of 2022 French presidential election voting in April, Mélenchon came third, garnering 7.7 million votes, narrowly behind second-place finisher Marine Le Pen.

La France Insoumise was founded on 10 February 2016,^[3][4] based on the belief that traditional parties and political organisations no longer serve democracy.^[5] The movement is inspired by the Spanish party Podemos, the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader in the United Kingdom in 2015 and the candidacy of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries in the United States. Its first meeting took place in Place Stalingrad, Paris on 5 June 2016 in the form of a march numbering about 10,000 people, according to the organisers.^[6][7] A second meeting took place in the gardens of the Toulouse Observatory on 28 August 2016.^[8]

The programme L'Avenir en commun (transl. A Shared Future) was adopted during the

In August 2017, La France Insoumise organized its first summer university (called Les AmFIs, a play on the word amphitheater and the acronym FI for France insoumise), a tradition in France where campuses open their doors to political party gatherings and meetings between activists, elected officials, philosophers, and cultural commentators. It was set in the Marseille Saint-Charles University and comprised four days of debates, conferences and workshops. The movement also debated its future.^[11]

In the 2017 Corsican territorial election, local supporters of La France Insoumise under the banner of La Corse Insoumise allied with the PCF. The PCF-FI alliance attacked Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and the list was disavowed by Mélenchon.^[12][13] During the 2024 French legislative election, La France Insoumise refused the nomination of five "rebels": Frédéric Mathieu, Danielle Simonnet, Raquel Garrido, Alexis Corbière, and Hendrik Davi.^[14][15]

The 2017 presidential campaign was directed by Manuel Bompard, national secretary of the PG, its spokesperson was

On 15 November 2016, Mélenchon held a meeting at Le Manège conference centre in Chambéry. Another similar meeting was held on 29 November at the Théâtre Femina [fr] in Bordeaux. This meeting was attended by 1,100 people, with several hundred more people outside unable to fit into the theatre.^[17] Another large meeting took place on 18 March 2017 in Place de la Bastille in Paris.^[18]

La France Insoumise was polling at 11.5% a month before the first vote.

In November 2020, Mélenchon announced his intention to run for the 2022 presidential election. He conditioned his candidacy to a petition put online by his La France Insoumise party. After winning the threshold of 150,000 signatures, he formally became the party's candidate for the election. In the first round of voting, Mélenchon garnered 7.7 million votes, coming in third among twelve candidates with 22% of the vote, behind president Emmanuel Macron in first place with 28%, and narrowly behind Marine Le Pen with 23% of the vote.^[22]

Ideologically, La France Insoumise is variously described as holding

The drawing up of the programme was coordinated by economist Jacques Généreux and lawyer Charlotte Girard.[42]^[43] It drew its inspiration from L'Humain d'abord (transl. Human First), the programme of the Left Front during the 2012 French presidential election, from work carried out by the PG during its conventions on eco-socialism and summits for a "plan B in Europe", and from contributions from supporters of the movement,^[42] which the rapporteurs were asked to synthesize. At the end of the Lille Convention, a synthesis of all the proposals resulted in a programme of seven axioms and 357 measures. It was adopted by more than 90% of voters.^[10] The movement proposes "ten emblematic measures", approved during the Lille Convention, calling for four main "emergencies" to be addressed: the democratic emergency, the social emergency, the ecological emergency, and the geo-political emergency.^[10][44] Adopted by 77,038 votes in an Internet poll, these ten measures are:^[10]

• The formation of a constituent assembly tasked with writing the constitution of a proposed French Sixth Republic to succeed the French Fifth Republic. Members of the movement consider the Fifth Republic to be a "presidential monarchy", in which too much power is concentrated in the office of the President of the Republic, with the people unable to exercise control over its actions. This constitutional process could also consider alternative forms of legislative elections, such as proportional representation. Constitutional and therefore institutional change is considered fundamental by the movement, which sees decreasing electoral turnout as a rejection by French people of their institutional system.
• The repeal of the El Khomri law (labour reform passed in 2016 by the Second Valls government) which the movement believes has ended the "hierarchy of standards" in French labour law by reversing the "principle of favour" and thus not sufficiently protecting workers.
• The "democratic re-founding" of the
  common agricultural policy, and environmental policy
  . Failing this, the program envisages a "Plan B" of unilateral exit from European treaties, followed by proposing further cooperation between countries.
• The implementation of an energy transition plan towards a target of 100% renewable energy in 2050, following the studies of the Association négaWatt and the public and interdepartmental agency of the environment and the control of the energy (ADEME). This transition involves shutting down France's nuclear power plants, criticised by the movement for their dependence on uranium supply, their alleged lack of safety, their radioactive waste management and their financial cost.
• The establishment of a "green rule" not to deprive nature more than can be replenished, nor produce more than it can bear, which the movement would propose during the constituent assembly process for inclusion in the new constitution.
• The right to dismiss elected representatives by recall election when they break campaign promises, or otherwise breach standards. The movement also wishes to propose this measure during the constituent assembly process.
• The protection of common goods such as air, water, food, living, health, energy, or currency by preventing their commodification in order to preserve the general interest and by developing corresponding public services.
• The separation of
  small and medium-sized enterprises
  (SMEs) and carry out credit policy on social and ecological criteria.
• Raising the minimum wage (called "SMIC") from 1,149 to 1,326 euros per month net for 35-hour weeks and raising civil servant salaries frozen since 2010.
• Withdrawal from free trade agreements such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).^[45][46]

Other proposals include withdrawing from the

Candidates for the June 2017 legislative elections are 60% from civil society (have never been members or elected representatives of a political party), with an average age of around 43 years. The invested candidates have signed the charter of the movement[51] as well as the ethical charter of the independent association Anticor, committed to ethics in politics, the fight against corruption and tax noncompliance.^[52] Beginning in late 2018, Mélenchon and the leadership of La France Insoumise made a significant shift by abandoning their sovereigntist and ultra-secularist stances. This decision led to the expulsion of key members,^[who?] marking a clear change in the party's ideological direction.^[53] The 2022 L'Avenir en commun programme for the Popular Union includes a number of proposals, such as replacing capitalism.^[54]

Unlike a classical political party, the organisation is not fixed. Supporters' groups, small committees responsible for promoting Mélenchon's candidacy at a local level, have been established all over France and abroad.^[55][56]

As of 2017, LFI had a membership of 540,000.^[57]

La France Insoumise is not a coalition of political parties; however, several political parties, branches or individuals announced their support for the movement once its programme had been agreed and its candidate chosen, including the

The Left Party, of which Mélenchon is a member, is the main political force involved in the movement. Several of its executives are organizing the campaign. The French Communist Party (PCF) is split on support for the movement. The party's national conference rejected a motion of support for Mélenchon by 55% on 5 November 2016,^[61] but party members voted three weeks later in favour of support, by 53.6%.^[62] Several executive members of the French Communist Party, including president Pierre Laurent and deputy Marie-George Buffet, have endorsed his candidacy.^[63]

In November 2016, Ensemble!, the third component of the Left Front coalition, also announced its support for the movement as 72% of its activists had voted in favour. They had been given the choice of three options: to support Mélenchon and work on a common framework (42% of the votes), to participate more directly in the campaign of La France Insoumise (30%) or to reject "at this stage" any support for Mélenchon (25%);^[64] however, the PCF and Ensemble! have chosen to lead "autonomous campaigns", maintaining their independence from the movement. Both parties print leaflets and posters and organize meetings without being associated with the political decisions of the campaign.^[65]

In December 2016, the Social Ecology Co-Operative, whose members include political figures from

On 10 March, 27 environmentalists, including MP Sergio Coronado, activists, local officials, candidates for the June legislative elections, and members of the EELV Federal Council, announced that they would not support Hamon in the first round of the presidential election but La France Insoumise instead.[68] They pointed to the fact that Hamon "needs a strong Socialist Party for his campaign" whereas "the hope of an environmentalist left requires instead to get rid of it", criticised François Hollande's five-year term, and suggested that the integration of political ecology into candidates' programs is "recent and inconsistent" for Hamon, while "deep and lasting" for Mélenchon.^[69]

On 12 April, seven EELV federal councillors endorsed Mélenchon rather than Hamon. They noted that if Hamon won the presidency and a parliamentary majority, "the majority would be composed of those who have up to the end supported the policies of François Hollande and Manuel Valls", adding: "Who would think that a Socialist Party majority defending Hollande's five-year term would legislate in favour of a radically different social and environmental platform?"^[70] On 14 April, Éric Piolle, EELV mayor of Grenoble, also endorsed La France Insoumise.^[71]

The party is a member of the European Left Alliance for the People and the Planet; a pan-European party that supports an alternative to capitalism.^[72]

National Assembly

Election	Leader	Votes (first round)		Seats		Result	Notes
		No.	%	No.	±
2017	Jean-Luc Mélenchon	2,497,622	11.03	17 / 577		Opposition
2022		3,142,354	13.82	69 / 577	52	Opposition	In coalition with the NUPES
2024	Manuel Bompard	9,042,485	28.21%	74 / 577	5	Opposition	In coalition with the NFP

La France Insoumise did not participate in the

European Parliament

Election	Leader	Votes	%	Seats	+/−	EP Group
2019	Manon Aubry	1,428,548	6.31 (#5)	6 / 79	New	The Left
2024[b]		2,432,976	9.87 (#4)	9 / 81	3

See also

• La France Insoumise group
• List of political parties in France