The program presented by La France insoumise for 2027 is titled “L’Avenir en commun” (“A Future in Common”). The 222-page document, described as the program for the “New France,” contains 1,134 proposals.
From the introduction, Jean-Luc Mélenchon sets out the alternative: “Supremacy or collectivism.” Shortly after, he asserts his choice: “This thought is that of ecological collectivism.” The program’s second part opens with a chapter titled “The era of a new collectivism,” immediately asserting the need to “Collectivize fundamental common goods.”
Collectivization of “Common Goods”
The program calls for the reinstatement of “the state monopoly on the attribution of grades and diplomas.” According to the source, Mélenchon defines planning—used 29 times in the document—as the ability to “decide what we are going to produce, consume, exchange; how we are going to move, live and live.” He also announces a constitutional list of “common goods,” an expression used 21 times, applied to water, air, food, health, energy, currency, digital services, telecommunications, and transport.
A notable statistic highlighted in the source is that the term “private property” appears only once in the 222 pages. The single instance is used to state that it is necessary to prevent “the right to private property from prevailing over the protection of water, air, food, life, the forest, health and energy.” In other words, over nearly everything.
The program also includes measures to “make effective the right of requisition of factories and companies of general interest by the state”; to create a “rental permit” and a “Housing Inspection” to enforce tenant rights (implying landlords have none); and to set a cap of five inheritable properties, “beyond which goods are requisitioned by the state and redistributed.” If an inheritance exceeds 12 million euros, the transfer is voided.
The “Great Bifurcation”
The most frequently used and significant word in the program, according to the source, is “bifurcation” (used 30 times). Bifurcation means taking a completely different path. The author of the critique, Nicolas Lecaussin, director of the liberal think tank IREF-Contrepoints, draws a personal parallel. “I knew it in communist Romania, where I was born,” Lecaussin wrote. “It leads, everywhere and without exception, to shortages and misery. Everywhere and without exception, the dreams of a ‘new man’ for a ‘new country’ ended in the nightmare of dictatorships.”
The program, Lecaussin argues, proposes the “same recipes of an inevitable disaster, vaguely and crudely updated,” including placing artificial intelligence under the control of a “national mission.” Mélenchon promises a “complete change of economic software” without elaborating on its viability. The source states that the program creates or increases 25 taxes and levies, including a 14-bracket income tax (up from five), the reinstatement of the ISF wealth tax, a 2% Zucman tax on wealth, and a progressive property tax based on total real assets.
Measures on Capital and Departure
Among the measures detailed in the program are: “Establish a universal tax on the income of individuals,” meaning taxation regardless of where one lives; “Reinstate an enhanced exit tax,” imposing a fee for leaving the country; and “Control capital movements,” preventing money from leaving. The critique states, “Taxed everywhere, taxed on departure, capital blocked. You are not forbidden to leave. But if you leave, you lose everything.”
Historical Parallels Drawn
Lecaussin draws direct comparisons to his experience under Romanian communism, noting similarities in the program’s approach to housing regulation, economic control, and personal freedoms. He recalls living with rationing, restricted heat and electricity, and state-controlled media.
“The communist regime also confiscated the property of those who fled the paradise,” Lecaussin wrote. “The communist regime also regulated housing occupancy: two rooms for one or two people, that was considered sufficient. The communist regime also claimed to regulate the economy in its own way.” He describes queues for food, rationed meat and sugar, apartments kept at 12-13 degrees Celsius in winter, daily power cuts, and television broadcasts dominated by the then-leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu.
While Lecaussin acknowledges that Mélenchon’s program does not explicitly call for a single-party state or a political police force, he argues the instruments are the same: “a threshold beyond which the state takes everything, requisition elevated to ordinary procedure, public monopoly in several sectors, a plan that decides production, administered prices, and a category, the ‘common goods,’ whose list will be drawn up after the election and which in fact endangers private property.”
Critique of “Power to the People”
The critique takes issue with Mélenchon’s frequent use of phrases like “power to the people” and “justice in the name of the people.” “This makes one’s blood run cold,” Lecaussin wrote. “Because that is what communist dictators said: everything was done and decided in the name of the people. The slightest dissent made you an ‘enemy of the people.'” He expresses concern over the “hatred with which Mélenchon points his finger at those—rich, business leaders, political opponents—he considers enemies who must be put back in their place.”
The program, Lecaussin concludes, evokes the “new countries of communism, the forced collectivization that made millions of victims among peasants, the exodus from the countryside to soulless cities in horrible hastily built buildings, without hot water, without an elevator, abandoned villages emptied, razed…”
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