The rebels cling to the hope of shaping a strong left-wing Europe. But forced to go it alone for the 2024 European elections, the party is struggling to make an impact on voting intentions.
A few weeks before the European elections, LFI is no longer able to climb in the polls. The La France Insoumise list renewed by MEP Manon Aubry finds itself with 6 to 8% voting intentions, in a fight with the EELV list of Marie Toussaint and the LR list of François-Xavier Bellamy. The party, which was the first of the left during the last presidential elections – is included in the Nupes union in 2022 – has left its place to the Place Publique-PS party led by Raphaël Glucksmann, which is placing itself for currently in third position after the RN and Renaissance. LFI suffers from its position on the situation in Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which has put its executives at the heart of several controversies and summoned as part of an investigation for “apology of terrorism” in the middle of the electoral campaign. It also perhaps suffers from the end of the “useful vote” on which the party was surfing in 2022, facing Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron.
Who is Manon Aubry, the head of the Insoumis list?
Engaged with La France Insoumise since 2019, Manon Aubry was reappointed as head of the list for the 2024 Europeans. After Sciences Po, the graduate in political science and business and international relations worked for eight years for different NGOs, then joined her mother in the ranks of LFI. Manon Aubry quickly became a figure in the party founded by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The left-wing activist is the only French woman to sit on the council of presidents of the European Parliament. In the European hemicycle, she also takes a position against tax evasion in Europe, feminicides and is at the initiative of a proposal for a European directive on the European duty of vigilance, a text “aimed at condemning multinationals violating human rights and destroying the environment in their production chain.” For the next election, she had launched an appeal to socialists, communists and ecologists for the creation of a common list in line with the Nupes, but it was not heard by the three other groups of the French left .
LFI wants to create a break with the models in place in Europe
The LFI program is structured into nine chapters around mainly social issues: agricultural policy, aid to migrants and even job creation. The left-wing party wants to continue its work started on a national scale and prepare “after Macron” Europe by leading “concrete fights against their system”, they explain on their campaign website.
To achieve this, Manon Aubry and her colleagues want to get Europe out of austerity and review the sharing of wealth by launching a European public investment plan to fight poverty and serve ecology. This plan will, according to them, put an end to social dumping, a practice which aims to reduce the social rights of workers to increase the competitiveness of a company. Like certain other parties, LFI intends to exit free trade agreements and relocate businesses to Europe, to create jobs. To serve ecology, they wish to “fully implement the Green Deal” and gradually strengthen it to fight against global warming, notably through an overhaul of agricultural policy deemed polluting and aggressive. The rebels want to attack modes of production, consumption and exchange as well as lobbies.
The rebellious list also plans to tackle the decline in certain rights (abortions, LGBTI) in Europe to guarantee each European citizen the same fundamental rights. On migration issues, LFI wishes to guarantee the right to asylum on European soil. The rebels also take a position regarding the situation in Gaza and want to put a stop to the export of arms and cooperation agreements with certain states at war.
What is the list of candidates for La France Insoumise (LFI)?
The LFI list is now complete. It contains 81 names, one for each seat in the European Parliament reserved for French elected officials. This does not mean that all of the names on the list will sit in parliament. If we rely on the polls, the elected representatives of the LFI party should not be more than 10 in Strasbourg at the end of the election, there are 6 of them to have sat there since 2019.
- Manon Aubry, MEP since 2019,
- Younous Omarjee, MEP since 2012
- Marina Mesure, MEP since 2022
- Anthony Smith
- Leïla Chaibi, MEP since 2019
- Arash Saeidi
- 7Rima Hassan
- Damien Carême, MEP since 2019
- Emma Fourreau
- Aurélien Le Coq
- Carine Sandon
- Daniel Ibanez
- Séverine Véziès
- Mohamed Bensaada
- Muriel Pascal
- Nordine Raymond
- Marie Mesmeur
- Mickaël Idrac
- Camille Hachez
- Brahim Ben Ali
- Myriam Thieulent
- Berenger Cernon
- Anne Sanchez
- Maxime Da Silva
- Latifa Chay
- Abdelkader Lahmar
- Laetitia Rigaudière
- Kevin Capron
- Sandra Pereira-Ostanel
- Maxime Viancin
- Nadia Aouchiche
- Reda Belkadi
- Nahima Lounis
- Laurent Thérond
- Anaïs Belouassa Cherifi
- Aureliano Lopes
- Lynda Kebbas
- Virginio Cestaro
- Cecilia Fonseca
- Yohann Taillandier
- Marielle Lemaitre
- Matthew Barberis
- Dalale Belhout
- Maël Brillant
- Isabelle Chenou
- Maxime Bergonso
- Juliette Charlot
- Kevin Vercin
- Stéphanie Cauzit
- Guillaume Lescaut
- Zohra Briand
- Jean-Thomas Debe
- Valerie Robert
- Brice Allemandou
- Laura Vallée Hans
- Mehdi Chtioui
- Louise Heritier
- Jean-Marie Brom
- Valérie Jacq
- Emilie Fromont
- Marion Beauvalet
- Jean-Christophe Turpin
- Ingrid Viot
- Allan Popelard
- Pauline Dumas
- Grégory Perche
- Leila Arfoutni
- Axel Maignan
- Marion Dais
- Mohamed Awad
- Christelle Gobert
- Albert Levy
- Florence Claudepierre
- Xavier Czapla
- Asma Rharmaoui-Claquin
- Pierre-Yves Cadalen
- Filipina Heyman
- Michel Larive
- Annabelle Huet
- Jean-Luc Mélenchon, former MEP (2009-2017)
- Huguette Bello