“Defiant France”, a left-wing French political party and one of the largest opposition parties, is anti-capitalist and an ardent defender of the environment. Its slogan is “A Shared Future”. The party was established in February 2016 in preparation for the 2017 French presidential elections and supported the candidacy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The party opposed pension and immigration laws and called for the integration of immigrants. Its stance against Israeli occupation aggression on Gaza and its call for ending the war and demanding a fair peace for Palestinians caused internal issues and friction with its allies and led to severe attacks from the French media.
Origin and Establishment
“Defiant France” was founded on February 10, 2016. It identifies itself as “an open, popular movement that is humanistic and inclusive, seeking to create a new form of citizens’ assembly, and promoting human liberation on a global level, popular sovereignty, social justice, secularism, ecological sustainability, and harmony between humans and their environment.”
Legally, the party is based on two associations: “Defiant France” and “the Association for the Financing of the Political Entity of Defiant France”. Membership requires no special conditions or financial contributions, as registration on the party’s website and choosing a field of work while adhering to the party’s principles are sufficient.
The first official party rally was held on June 5, 2016, in the French capital, Paris, with the participation of around 10,000 people.
Demonstrators during protests against police violence in Lyon, France, in late 2023.
Thought and Ideology
The party is described as left-wing but has not clearly defined its ideological identity, focusing on the common denominators among its components based on the outcomes of representative gatherings or support groups and the principles it has set for itself, vowing to defend them in society, elected institutions, and state institutions.
Political observers and analysts tried to pin down its ideological and intellectual references. Some, like political scientist Gaël Brustier and historian Alain Bergounioux, and sociologist Manuel Cervera-Marzal, categorized the party within the radical/extreme left, akin to Spain’s “Podemos” and Greece’s “Syriza”, united by populism and anti-liberalism.
However, political scientist Rémi Lefebvre considers it a reformist party that does not demand the abolition of capitalism but its reform and regulation. The party and its figurehead Jean-Luc Mélenchon have a strong republican spirit. The party’s electoral participation negates radicalism, even though it is highly critical and practices confrontational politics.
Ahead of the French legislative elections in June 2022, the party sought to unite the left-wing forces in all their components against “Macron’s right” in the National Assembly (Parliament) in a coalition that includes left-wing parties and the Green Party (environment) called “New Popular Ecological and Social Union Parliament”.
Party Principles and Political Demands
“Defiant France” has adopted principles affirming it is:
- An evolving movement that seeks to create a new form of organization and aggregation of citizens, listening to their opinions and embodying them in annual agreements.
- A humanistic movement, enhancing global human liberation, popular sovereignty, social justice, secularism, the environment, and harmony between humans and their environment. It establishes relations with movements in other countries that work in the same direction and coordinates with those who share its goals.
- An open and popular movement that does not require membership cards or fees from its members, opening the door to those who want to benefit from its services.
- A movement where internal conflicts, clashes of currents, and biases have no place, with decisions made by consensus to avoid pitfalls associated with divisions and minorities, adopting the most democratic methods that fit this purpose.
- A cultural movement that confronts the dismantling machine pursued by liberal policies with a view to building a new world.
- A movement that encourages work, investing its energy, skills, and financial resources in serving society through a social network that provides opportunities for the exchange of expertise.
- A movement that dedicates part of its activity to acts of solidarity.
- A collective and transparent movement, taking its decisions and initiatives through an open debate that leverages advanced communication techniques to broaden consultation and diversify forms of participation, especially in adopting annual agreements.
- A polycentric movement that allows everyone to access it, based on two national structures:
– The Political Council: the body entrusted with examining strategic orientations and major campaigns of the movement.
– The Representative Assembly or Coordinating Body (a third of the executive directors of regional representations within and outside France and two-thirds of activists selected randomly).
The party’s political demands include 10 basic measures, which are the focus of its demands and political work:
- Establishment of a constituent assembly to draft the constitution of the Sixth Republic to succeed the current Fifth Republic.
- Repeal of the labor law in France.
- Recasting of European Union treaties.
- Change of a number of its monetary, agricultural, environmental, and other policies.
- Adoption of an energy plan transitioning to 100% renewable energy by 2050.
- Adoption of a green base: not taking more from nature than can be renewed, nor producing more than it can bear.
- Protection of the common living materials such as air, water, food, housing, health, and energy.
- Separation of financial banking and speculative activities from lending and deposit activities to protect citizens’ money.
- Adoption of a minimum wage standard.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the party’s candidate in the presidential elections, translated these measures into his electoral program and political speeches, emphasizing rejection of the anti-immigrant discourse and calling for their integration and regularization of their legal status.
He also called for France’s exit from NATO and the European Union treaties if certain conditions are not met, stating, “Europe, we must change it, or we leave it,” in addition to demanding abandonment of nuclear energy.
Media and Symbols
Mélenchon remains one of the party’s most prominent symbols, in addition to the head of its parliamentary group Mathilde Panot, and the party coordinators Manuel Bompard from 2017 to 2019, and Adrien Quatennens from 2019 to 2022, with Bompard returning to the position of party coordinator again afterwards.
Major Milestones
The party held its first official rally on June 5, 2016, in Paris with the participation of about 10,000 people, and its second meeting in August 2016 in Toulouse.
In Lille, following a meeting on October 15 and 16, 2016, which lasted two days and involved about a thousand members, the party adopted the Lille Agreement, containing the shared ideas and perspectives among the party members, who can organize themselves in representations or support groups throughout France and beyond, exceeding 2,800 by March 2017.
In December 2017, a congress was organized where it restructured itself, reaffirmed its slogan and program titled “A Shared Future”, and reiterated its major aforementioned demands. By the end of 2018, the party experienced departures, internal tensions, and protests over the lack of internal democracy and clarity of political lines and strategic vision.
In February 2019, the party was accused of anti-Semitism following Mélenchon’s stance on the Yellow Vests movement – an accusation liberals used to tarnish the party’s reputation. On December 19, 2019, the party presented a counterproposal to the pension reform, proposing retirement at age 60.
The leader of the largest French opposition party in October 2020 refused to support President Emmanuel Macron in his debate with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with Mélenchon justifying his stance by stating Macron had lost control of the situation, expressing his preference for silence in an interview.
In October 2021, Mélenchon himself launched the idea of a “People’s Union Parliament” with the goal of gathering personalities outside the party to support his candidacy in the presidential elections, aiming to reconstitute the French left.
The party managed to turn this idea into a coalition on the ground called “New Popular Ecological and Social Union Parliament”, headed by “Defiant France” and including left-wing parties and the Green Party, to run in the legislative elections and confront Macron and his alliance in June 2022.
In those elections, Mélenchon achieved his best electoral result, placing third with 21.95% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election on April 10, 2022.
An “IFOP” French research institute survey revealed Mélenchon benefited from the votes of Muslim voters in the first round by more than 70% compared to only 37% in the 2017 elections.
“Defiant France” gained a significant position in the French Parliament after it formed an alliance with the Green Party and some left-wing parties within the Popular Union, obtaining 75 seats in the National Assembly (House of Representatives) and 27 advisors in regionally elected councils in the same year’s legislative elections (2022), having previously won 5 seats in the European Parliament in 2009.
The party experienced a new wave of departures and exclusions of figures in the summer of 2022, with Manuel Bompard taking the role of national coordinator in December 2022 without elections.
Throughout 2023, the party continued to oppose the pension reform law and considered the social mobilization against it to be unprecedented in France for four decades. The party leader stated that the battle over the law is between the French people and President Macron and emphasized that “the duty of the president, in democracy, is to find a way out of this crisis, either by referendum or, more simply, by withdrawing the reform.”
The party’s deputies denounced the immigration law passed by France in December 2023, considering it a victory for the far-right party and a disfigurement of France’s history of preserving human rights.
A member of the French National Assembly and parliamentarian from “Defiant France” Aymeric Caron.
Opposition to the Aggression on Gaza
The stance of “Defiant France” party leadership against Israeli occupation’s war on Gaza following the “Al-Aqsa Storm” operation on October 7, 2023, deepened internal disagreements within the party. Party leadership rejected accusations of “terrorism” against the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), with party deputy Danièle Obono describing Hamas as a movement for the liberation of Palestine, which some party members refused and demanded her retraction.
The party considered policies of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, and the policy of intensifying settlements, to be responsible for the “Al-Aqsa Storm” operation.
Mélenchon wrote on his “X” platform: “War crimes in Gaza must be condemned, perpetrators tried, and punished,” and called for France to work to stop the fire with all its political and diplomatic might, confirming that a two-state solution in accordance with United Nations resolutions is the way to peace in the region.
The parliamentary block of the party organized a solidarity stand with the Palestinian people in front of the French Parliament, attended by the Palestinian ambassador to France, Hala Abu Hasira, and MPs from the Communist Party and the Green Party.
The block proposed to the president of the French Parliament, Yaël Braun-Pivet, to observe a minute of silence in mourning for a French foreign service employee killed by Israeli occupation bombing in southern Gaza Strip; however, the request was rejected.
Because of these positions, the party faced a fierce media campaign by French media supporting Israel, exploited by dissenters within the party and its allies, resulting in the suspension of the French Socialist Party’s participation in the left-wing deputies’ coalition “New Ecological and Social Union Parliament”.
Observers believe that “Defiant France” is not a party in the traditional sense, rather it is a political movement that strives to build a new organizational form. It aims to avoid “bureaucracy and hierarchy that suffocated traditional parties and hindered the rejuvenation and renewal of its organizational structures.” However, the movement has not yet found a recipe to reduce organizational chaos within its ranks and stop the trend of divisions and departures.
