Defence, the EU and NATO: Mélenchon’s red-brown ties with the AfD and RN

Paris. “The far right has returned to Germany. A catastrophic demonstration of the blindness of centrist European policies. Under these circumstances, Germany’s military plan to create Europe’s first conventional army is unacceptable to France”. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s reaction to the victory of Alternative für Deutschland in Saxony-Anhalt, where on Sunday it secured 43.8 per cent of the vote and 39 out of 83 seats in the state election, His remarks suggest what might lie in store for France should the radical left leader win the forthcoming presidential elections, but also highlight the red-brown convergences between La France insoumise (LFI) and Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s Rassemblement National (RN) – the far-right party across the Alps – on fundamental issues such as European defence. On the one hand, Mélenchon has described the result for the German radical right as a ‘disaster’, attributing responsibility for the AfD’s greatest success in its history to the centrist policies pursued at European level: an interpretation according to which the German party’s rise is the result of the economic and social choices made by the centrists, which have fuelled frustration and a sense of abandonment amongst voters. On the other hand, however, the LFI leader himself rejects the idea of a common defence – that is, one of the main strategic responses with which centrist forces are seeking to address the new geopolitical imbalances – paradoxically aligning himself with the positions of both the AfD and the RN, which oppose greater military integration amongst EU countries.

Over the weekend, at the Cernobbio Forum, Bardella reiterated that he is “radically opposed” to the “Europe of defence” and to the creation of a common European army, because “defence is the exclusive competence of a state”. Mélenchon’s hostility towards an integrated European defence did not arise just the day before yesterday: it goes back much further. As early as March 2017, at the European Parliament, the guru of the radical left spoke out explicitly against the ‘Europe of Defence’ project. The title he chose for his speech left no room for interpretation: ‘Je vote contre l’Europe de la guerre’. In his speech, Mélenchon did not merely criticise this or that detail of the project: he argued that the European Union was preparing a ‘Europe of war’, challenging the idea of preparing for ‘high-intensity’ conflicts and denouncing the strengthening of ties with NATO. His stance has not changed since then, and is even more explicit in his manifesto for the 2027 presidential election. The ‘Europe of defence’, it states, “is an illusion, anti-democratic by definition, modelled on NATO in its conception, and has always been ineffective in the very few areas where it has sought to establish itself”. It then lists a series of proposals, including: putting an end to Franco-German programmes relating to future aircraft and tanks; withdrawing France from the European defence headquarters; and defying European treaties that would force a re-examination of France’s specific military role. The LFI manifesto also calls for France’s withdrawal from NATO, which should have “been dissolved at the end of the Cold War. “On the contrary, it has not stopped expanding since then, causing tensions and mistrust,” the document states. The first measure in the event of an LFI victory? “France’s immediate withdrawal from NATO’s integrated command”, the very same measure that has featured for years in the RN’s programme and which Marine Le Pen reiterated in May in an interview with BFM TV. “By the end of the five-year term (in the event of victory, ed.), we will withdraw from NATO’s integrated command”, declared the RN candidate for the 2027 presidential election just four months ago. Mélenchon is not merely opposed to German rearmament, Friedrich Merz’s policies and the current European strategy on the Ukrainian issue. His stance runs deeper: the leader of the radical left, in line with RN’s position, is opposed to the very idea that the EU should transform itself into an integrated military entity, particularly when this transformation takes place in coordination with NATO. The latest polls suggest LFI and RN will face off in the run-off of the upcoming presidential election: the worst-case scenario for the development of a European defence structure.