La France insoumise has chosen to place the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the center of its European campaign to target, according to the party, young people and working-class neighborhoods. A strategy which fractures the Nupes a little more.
It’s not easy to spot it, between the umbrellas, the Palestinian flags and the multitude of tricolor scarves of the rebellious deputies, who came en masse to this gathering organized on April 30 in Paris. She didn’t take the microphone or get on the stage. Manon Aubry is, however, the head of the list of La France insoumise (LFI) for the June 9 election.
The star of the day is Rima Hassan, acclaimed by the demonstrators. The Franco-Palestinian jurist and activist, nominated in seventh position (therefore possibly eligible) for the European elections, was summoned by the police for “apology of terrorism”, for her comments on Hamas, just like Mathilde Panot, leader of the LFI deputies.
The scene illustrates the campaign strategy of the rebels, focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To the point of eclipsing the favorite themes of their head of list, specialist in tax evasion and social inequalities… A choice which threatens to definitively bury any alliance on the left.
A candidate to embody the Palestinian cause
At first glance, it is only one theme out of around fifty, placed towards the end of the European programme. But it is the one that the movement wants to highlight. LFI advocates a “immediate ceasefire in the Middle East” And “the immediate end of the blockade of the Gaza Strip“. This measure, which already appeared in the LFI program for the European elections in 2019 (and in Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s presidential project during his three candidacies), has been significantly expanded.
From the introduction of the program, “Netanyahu’s criminal policy against the Palestinians” is denounced, while the formula of a “two-state solution”, present since 2012, has disappeared. At the risk of fueling accusations of ambiguity, fueled by the position of Rima Hassan for a “Binational state”. “It is obvious that we are for a two-state solution”sweeps away Kévin Vercin, candidate and facilitator of the LFI Peace group.
In addition to the slogans, the party also chose to invest Rima Hassan, “a figure who embodies this fight for a ceasefire in Gaza”, explains campaign manager Matthias Tavel. In recent weeks, the candidate has taken on more and more of the spotlight, taking on TV shows and public meetings in tandem with the boss of the rebels, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“Today, the head of the LFI list is Rima Hassan, it’s not Manon Aubry, it’s quite humiliating for her.”
A communist frameworkat franceinfo
The rebels deny it: they boast “the talent” of their top list and their ability to speak “all subjects”. But they remain determined to make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a crucial theme of their campaign. “We do it first of all out of moral duty”asserts Matthias Tavel, referring to the tens of thousands of civilians who have died in the Gaza Strip since October 7. “Given current events, it would be unthinkable to ignore this subject, especially since the European Union has leverspleads Kévin Vercin. The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner and is a means of putting pressure on Netanyahu’s government.”
Seduce “young people” and “working-class neighborhoods”
The rebels hope to reap the benefits of this strategy at the polls, in the more or less long term. “I don’t make strategic calculations when I fight against a genocide”says David Guiraud, MP for the North. “But the Palestinian question raises all the unsaid things that there are in France about this rotten colonial mentality, about thinking that the lives of Palestinians, it does not count ; the lives of Arabs don’t count… There are compatriots who say about LFI: they are courageous, they believe us, they listen to us”he continues, referring to the French “directly or indirectly concerned by colonization”, “Franco-Palestinians, Franco-Algerians…” The rebels thus target categories of voters who are not used to voting in the European elections.
“The subject of Palestine connects many people to politics, in particular young people and working-class neighborhoods (…) We need the vote of young people, we make no secret of it.”
Louis Boyard, LFI deputy for Val-de-Marneat franceinfo
Louis Boyard, who in 2022 began a “college tour”, is very present in student mobilizations. Like the deputy for Val-de-Marne, a swarm of LFI deputies went to Sciences Po Paris on April 29. Since the beginning, LFI shows its support for mobilizations in universities and said he hoped that the movement “grow”, in line with the strategy of conflictualization. Even if it means triggering criticism when Rima Hassan calls on the students to “uprising”.
Accused of “handling” by their political opponents, the rebels assure that they are in their role when they go to campus. “We come to support the students’ right to demonstrate and the Palestinian cause, and also to calm things down”assures Louis Boyard, while several blockages were evacuated by the police.
“Our strategy is not to speak to as many people as possible”
This presence among students has little chance of making a difference at the polls on June 9, the young electorate being more inclined to abstain. However, the stakes are high, as the LFI list oscillates between 6 and 9% of voting intentions, clearly behind the PS-Place publique list. The rebels hope to do better than the 6.31% collected by Manon Aubry in 2019, a score judged “disappointing” compared to the 19.58% collected by Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round of the presidential election in 2017.
“Our strategy is not to speak to as many people as possible like for a presidential election, but to mobilize by creating enough reasons to vote for us”explains campaign manager Matthias Tavel. “We are betting that people will come and vote if, through their ballot, they can express anger, dignity, to be respected. The slogan ‘they want to silence us’, it unites, it mobilizes”he explains about the slogan against “censorship” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Purchasing power and climate eclipsed
But this strategic choice displeases LFI’s former partners within Nupes. “En linking the Palestinian question to working-class neighborhoods, they adopt a strategy of essentialization for electoral, community purposes”, deplores environmentalist MEP David Cormand. And internally, not all the rebels are stepping up to defend this line. While the numerous speeches on Gaza are deducted from LFI’s speaking time as part of the campaign, there remains little media space for environmental or economic issues. François Ruffin, deputy for the Somme, prefers to campaign on social inequalities. He politely declined our questions and several LFI deputies did not respond to our requests, like Manon Aubry.
“There is no desire to carry out a 100% Gaza campaign, but it is true that we are often brought back to that”, observes LFI MEP Leïla Chaibi, vying for a second term. Mobilized on social issues, she wants to highlight the issue of food aid and that of platform workers. But she notes that these speeches “are less audible”.
“We are not going to leave social issues to Glucksmann, that would be a mistake… Polls show that one of the first concerns of the French is the high cost of living.”
Leïla Chaibi, LFI MEPat franceinfo
Indeed, according to an opinion survey by Harris Interactiveonly 7% of French people cite “the situation in Israel and Gaza” among their motivations for voting in the European elections, and 10% of 18-24 year olds. This subject comes in 19th position, far behind purchasing power or employment.
This strategy also risks diverting part of the rebellious electorate. Some supporters interviewed during a meeting on April 17 in Roubaix (North) assure that they will not vote LFI because of its position too “cleavage” on Gaza. “Jean-Luc Mélenchon has lost part of his base, and he seems to have difficulty expanding his electorate”observes Jean-Daniel Lévy, deputy director of Harris Interactive.
“They want to make it an irreconcilable divide on the left”
On the left, the rebellious strategy has worsened the divide with the former allies of the coalition. “What is happening in Palestine is monstrous and it is legitimate to make it a campaign subject. But the rebels are doing it in a very aggressive way, disqualifying all others, even on the left, considering that they are the only defenders of the Palestinian cause”plagues a communist executive.
Same anger from environmentalists. “They want at all costs to make it an irreconcilable fracture of the left, and in this, it is a form of instrumentalization of Gaza”, judges MEP David Cormand. Basically, the only “divergence, [c’est] when the rebels initially refused to qualify the attacks of October 7 as terrorist acts”. In fact, thehe left-wing parties may well have the same position (for a cease-fire and for the recognition of a Palestinian state), but they have been struggling since the attack carried out by Hamas in Israel.
The invectives have increased over a conference on Palestine planned at the University of Lille on April 18. The poster of the event in which were to participate Rima Hassan and Jean-Luc Mélenchon set things on fire, because of a logo representing a single state, encompassing Israel and the Palestinian territories. “When we are a political party, we do not display ourselves with a logo that denies the existence of the State of Israel.”denounced Raphaël Glucksmannhead of the PS-Public Square list.
After the cancellation of the conference, Jean-Luc Mélenchon drew a parallel between the president of the University of Lille and the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, and buried a little more the chances of a dialogue with the communists. Of the “excessive comments that discredit everything else”reacted the boss of the PCF, Fabien Roussel. “It’s indefensible, what Jean-Luc Mélenchon said, indefensible.”
Set yourself up as “defenders of minorities” with a view to 2027
Relations are not much better with the socialists. The founder of LFI is at loggerheads with his former close friend Jérôme Guedj, who had described the rebels as“useful idiots of Hamas” after October 7. In a blog note dated April 29, Jean-Luc Mélenchon mocks the “squeaks” of the socialist deputy, who according to him “denied the most constant principles of the left of Judaism in France”. At the franceinfo microphone, Jérôme Guedj said “afflicted by these repeated slip-ups by Jean-Luc Mélenchon” and regretted being “essentialized” by the latter.
On the LFI side, we are offended by the accusations coming from former allies. “I am outraged that partners on the left call us anti-Semites”breathes Leïla Chaibi.
“We are competitors in this campaign, but we are partners and after June 9, we will have to talk to each other. But I’m afraid that it will leave traces…”
Leïla Chaibi, LFI MEPat franceinfo
The 2027 presidential election is already on everyone’s minds and the tactical choices for this European campaign have also been made with this deadline in mind. “Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the rebels are betting that by focusing their campaign on Palestine, they will perhaps write off their score of June 9, but they will have succeeded in imposing this campaign theme and being identified as defenders of minorities, against injustices and racism”analyzes Jean-Daniel Lévy, of the Harris Institute.
“When Marine Le Pen is announced at 30% in the polls for 2027, many people will start to be afraid, to fear a rise in racism”, predicts Matthias Tavel. The movement’s staff is therefore working to ensure that it is identified as a recourse. In the meantime, there are five weeks of European campaigning left, and three years before the presidential election.