LIVE - The LFI meeting has just started at Le Bourget

The National Council (parliament) of the Communist Party announced on Saturday that any member who supported a candidate other than the leader of the movement Fabien Roussel would put themselves “outside the party”. This decision targets the four communist deputies, including their leader Stéphane Peu, who announced on Friday supporting the candidacy of the leader of La France insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

In addition to the communist deputies (Stéphane Peu, Nicolas Sansu, Elsa Faucillon and Soumya Bourouaha), five overseas elected officials had announced their support for Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

“Out of respect for the democratic life of our party”, every member “must respect the majority choice”, believes the communist body in a press release.

At the beginning of September, PCF activists voted 72% to support the candidacy for the Elysée of the party's national secretary Fabien Roussel, who had been reappointed in July.

If the French had to choose between “the extreme right” of Marine Le Pen and “the radical left”, “we would have both for the long term”, warned Édouard Philippe on Saturday, who attacked the “communitarian vision” and “the administered economy” of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

“Today, the presidential election is a progressive polarization” between “the candidate of the extreme right and the candidates of the radical left”, where “everyone who is perceived as being in the middle is required to have to choose between order and chaos”, explained the Horizons candidate during a public meeting in La Ciotat (Bouches-du-Rhône).

But “a France in which we would have to choose between the extreme right and the radical left is a France in which we would have both and in the long term,” he warned.

In this RN-LFI “opposition”, Édouard Philippe explained that he saw “many points in common”, notably “a detestation of European construction” and the desire to “leave NATO”.

The former Prime Minister then attacked Mr. Mélenchon, who presents his program on Saturday. “I don’t know if I want a new France” because “I believe deeply in republican universalism,” he said, accusing the rebellious candidate of holding “positions that are based on a communitarian vision of things.”

Jean-Luc Mélenchon responded on X to the RN candidate, who strongly criticized her program, noting “that she mainly attacks immigration and the police”.

“For a self-proclaimed 'patriot', she begins by stating her opposition to a French tradition since the 16th century: the law of the soil. On the other hand, she does not talk about her refusal to retire at 60, the increase in the minimum wage or the freezing of prices. The RN is almost Édouard Philippe,” he castigated, singling out the Horizons presidential candidate in the process.

Traveling in Bouches-du-Rhône, the former prime minister, presidential candidate, presented his “grand tour” of France this Saturday morning. He defended the approach of these smaller meetings, “to ask questions” to “listen to what the candidate is proposing”, to “understand the meaning of his proposals” and “to discuss calmly”.

A good campaign, for him, “is also respectful and attentive discussion”. “Democracy is not simply the culture of clash and formula, it is also a peaceful conversation with our fellow citizens.”

The program of La France insoumise “is not a project to straighten out the country” but a “project to dismantle France”, accused Marine Le Pen on Saturday on X, after the publication of an updated version of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s project.

“The La France insoumise program is not a project to restore the country. It is a project to dismantle France. He pushes the logic of deconstruction initiated by Emmanuel Macron since his arrival to power to its conclusion,” affirms the candidate of the National Rally, seeing a continuity between the action of the former President of the Republic and the project of the radical left.

Marine Le Pen points to an “accumulation of dangerous measures”, from the “reestablishment of full land rights, including in Mayotte” to the “dismantling of the BAC and (the) disarmament of municipal police”, including a “policy of degrowth” and the “progressive closure of our nuclear power plants”.

This “project which disarms, which renounces, which fails and which divides (...) does not prepare the future of France: it organizes its weakening and its erasure”, asserts the far-right candidate.

Édouard Philippe is holding a public meeting this Saturday morning in La Ciotat (Bouches-du-Rhône). He begins a “grand tour” with public meetings in all French regions “until the end of December”, and reaffirmed on Friday his refusal of the primary and of debating with his competitors, an “operation consisting of dividing the right and the center”.

“I am going to go to all the regions, and I am going to travel the country, organize meetings, public meetings with the French,” said the Horizons candidate for the presidential election during a trip to Bouches-du-Rhône.

On the left, the choice of the Bourget exhibition center as a meeting place is not insignificant. This is where the socialist candidate François Hollande held his famous meeting in January 2012, during which he said: “My real adversary (...) is the world of finance.”

It is also there - and this reference surely speaks more to Jean-Luc Mélenchon who despises François Hollande - that François Mitterrand held his last first round meeting during his campaign for re-election in 1988.

The former socialist president still remains a tutelary figure for the Insoumis candidate who was a member of the PS for more than 30 years.

After Clermont-Ferrand last month and before Le Havre next month, La France insoumise is returning this weekend to the Paris region, where it is most established, with this meeting at the Bourget exhibition center, in Seine-Saint-Denis. On Friday, 17,000 activists were registered for this event. Up to 20,000 people expected in total.

On Saturday, with this meeting, “we have three objectives: demonstrating the strength and dynamics of our campaign, showcasing our team and presenting our program,” explains LFI coordinator and campaign director, Manuel Bompard, to AFP.

Because this event follows the release in bookstores on Friday of the presidential program of the Insoumis, the new version of “The Future in Common”, with 1069 proposals.

And the radical left movement, always keen on technological innovations, intends to show in an original way what their applied program would look like.

“We will broadcast a short film, between fiction and reality, with passages between stage and screen, to show how L’Avenir en commune will change people’s lives,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s entourage told AFP.