Mélenchon to launch 2027 French presidential programme with retirement age cut and wage and food pledges
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 75, will launch his 2027 presidential programme on Saturday with a speech setting out France Unbowed’s (LFI) fifth edition of “L’Avenir en commun” (“A Shared Future”), which largely restates the backbone of his earlier bids. Flagship pledges include raising the net monthly minimum wage to €1,700 from about €1,480, capping prices for essential foods, abolishing the flat tax on capital income and lifting taxes on the wealthiest households. He also promises to repeal President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, which raised the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, and to restore retirement at 60 for people who have contributed for 40 years.
On energy, LFI again backs a gradual nuclear phase-out toward a fully renewable electricity system, including scrapping the planned EPR2 reactor programme and not running plants beyond 60 years. In foreign policy the platform repeats Mélenchon’s criticism of NATO and calls for France’s gradual withdrawal, beginning with an exit from the integrated military command — the posture France took under Charles de Gaulle in 1966 and reversed under Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009. It also faults German influence on EU economic policy, calling Berlin the chief defender of “ordoliberalism,” and seeks stronger protection of domestic industry, relocation of production to France and a more interventionist state. Polls currently make him the left’s strongest contender for an April runoff against Marine Le Pen, while also indicating he would lose the second round.
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