Jean-Luc Melenchon has launched his presidential campaign on Sunday with a rally in Saint-Denis, a Paris suburb that has become both a stronghold for the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party and a symbol of the “New France” he hopes to champion.
Melenchon used his first presidential campaign rally on Sunday to attack the National Rally, accusing the far-right party of promoting a form of “supremacism” that seeks to divide people “along ethnic and religious lines”. Speaking in Saint-Denis, the largest city in the Paris suburbs and now a showcase for France Unbowed (LFI), Melenchon told supporters that the RN’s project was rooted in a politics of hierarchy and division. “In this emerging chaos, a new political project is taking root, amid the wars in the Middle East and Trumpism: this is what must be called supremacism, that is, a desire to establish a human hierarchy to dominate peoples by dividing them along ethnic and religious lines,” the LFI presidential candidate said. “In France, supremacism is championed by the RN,” he added. The rally, held outdoors in Place Victor Hugo in front of the Basilica of Saint-Denis, marked Melenchon’s first major campaign gathering since the formal announcement of his candidacy in early May. Several thousand people attended the event, staged between the basilica – the burial place of France’s kings – and the town hall, now run by LFI mayor Bally Bagayoko. Posting on X, Melenchon estimated some 26,000 supporters and political allies were present at the event.
