The battle between old and new France is now impossible to ignore

Add the word ‘new’ to anything old and established, and you are always going to cause anger. Rather than injecting youth and vitality, conservatives suspect radicalism, and even revolution.

This is certainly the case for French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The veteran leftist believes a Nouvelle France – a New France – has emerged as his ancient nation repositions itself in a vastly changed world, and that politicians need to respond.

The 74-year-old’s name alone infuriates many, not least because of the former Trotskyist’s inflammatory economic strategies, but on the subject of France’s revised identity he knows how to frame the debate.

Mr Mélenchon won more than seven million votes in the 12-candidate first round of the 2022 presidential election, putting him a very close third. 

Significant support

Just under 22% of the electorate backed him. These are strikingly high numbers, and the reason he has an outside chance of finally becoming head of state in 2027.

Those supporting Mr Mélenchon, de facto leader of La France Insoumise (LFI), are impressed by his claim that France has changed “more in six decades than in the two centuries before” and that a new way of thinking is required.

He particularly points to decolonisation, when immigration from former colonies intensified because a cheap labour force was needed to rebuild France after World War Two.

The post-war years also saw French women granted the vote for the first time, ensuring a feminisation of public life, and indeed of society in general.

Add a shift away from agrarian communities to the cities, and it is undeniable that La France Profonde – a ‘deep France’ built around rural smallholdings and Catholic churches – is no longer the only model.

Romanticised France

Of course, the old romantic France still exists – it is one of the reasons the country remains the most popular tourist destination in the world – but there is ugliness in nostalgia too.

The country is still relying on a Fifth Republic Constitution drafted in 1958 – one that was focused on maintaining ultra-strong governance as the country fought a savage conflict to try to hang on to Algeria, once its largest and most prestigious colony. 

Algerian nationalists won the war in 1962, yet the principal feature of the 1958 Constitution – a quasi-monarchical president controlling a vast security state – remains firmly in place.

A Sixth Republic could give greater democracy, not least by increasing the power of parliament over the president. 

It might also assist millions of ‘new French’ – as reactionaries refer to them – from ethnic and religious minorities who rightly complain about discrimination and police brutality in a country where the colonial mindset is still very strong. 

This mindset can be seen in parties such as the Rassemblement National (RN), which emerged partly from far-right networks shaped by opposition to Algerian independence.

Elements of the party have expressed nostalgia for colonial Algeria, where Muslim Algerians faced systemic legal and political discrimination under French rule. 

Critics argue that this legacy still drives parts of the RN’s anti-immigration politics today.

They champion a protectionist ‘Made in France’ country and rail against ‘alien’ cultures and the realities of an increasingly inter-connected world.

President Emmanuel Macron will be forced to stand down next year, having spent his maximum two terms in office, and it is not inconceivable that Mr Mélenchon will go head-to-head with an RN candidate – either Jordan Bardella or his mentor Marine Le Pen – to try to become the new head of state.

In such circumstances, the contest between New France enlightenment and Old France bigotry will be stark, and the result extremely difficult to call.