La France Insoumise (LFI) has published the fifth edition of its programme, L’Avenir en commun (A Future in Common), which went on sale on November 6 and was presented the following day at a rally at Le Bourget, in Seine-Saint-Denis north of Paris.
Some 20,000 people attended, according to the organisers. The document lists 1,069 measures, 238 of them new, and contains some controversial proposals.
“I have only one reasonable thing to propose to you: Everything must change. It is time to change everything,” LFI leader and presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon said.
He rejected calls to soften his positions, saying the programme had to be applied rather than watered down.
Mélenchon, who is running for president for the fourth time, came third in 2022 with 21.95 per cent of the vote. Recent polls suggest he could reach the second round, Public Sénat has reported.
On pensions, the programme calls for the immediate abrogation of the reform that raised the retirement age to 64. It then proposes a return to 62, followed by the restoration of the right to retire at 60 at full rate after 40 years of contributions.
On taxation and public finances, LFI plans a substantial increase in revenue.
Its counter-budget for 2027, presented on October 14, projected €106.4 billion in additional annual receipts via a string of tax hikes.
The main instruments include a 2 per cent levy on wealth above €100 million (the “Zucman tax”, named after French economist Gabriel Zucman), the reintroduction of a wealth tax with a climate component, the abolition of the flat tax on capital income and an expansion of the income-tax scale from five to 14 brackets.
According to LFI, the climate wealth tax would raise €10 billion and the end of the flat tax €9 billion.
Salary ratios inside companies would be capped at 1 to 20, and a new inheritance ceiling of €12 million would apply across all assets.
Married couples would lose their joint tax assessment.
The party states that roughly €81.7 billion of the new revenue would fund higher public spending, with the remainder, about €25 billion, directed towards reducing the public debt.
Economists interviewed by AFP described the plan as “not very detailed” and “optimistic”.
On policing, the programme sets out several restrictions.
It calls for a ban on tasers, rubber-bullet launchers and certain crowd-control grenades for everyday policing and demonstrations.
It proposes the dismantling of two specialised units, the anti-crime brigades (BAC) and the motorised violent-action repression brigades (BRAV-M), with their officers reassigned to a restored neighbourhood police force.
Municipal police forces are to be integrated into this model and equipped without lethal weapons.
The programme also seeks the repeal of the 2017 law on failure to obey police orders, which LFI calls a “licence to kill”, a ban on certain restraint techniques and the replacement of the current police and gendarmerie internal inspection bodies (IGPN and IGGN) by an independent authority.
On the environment it calls for the redrawing of France’s administrative map into “eco-regions” organised around watersheds, mountain ranges and coastlines rather than existing departments and regions.
It proposes a nine-month compulsory ecological civic service for young people and the creation of a climate crime in the criminal code.
The target for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions is set at 65 per cent by 2033 (2030 in the 2022 programme), while a…
