Mélenchon squares up to Brussels in election manifesto

PARIS — French leftist presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon wants a radical overhaul of EU rules that would set him on a collision course with Brussels. The far-left leader, who has enjoyed a recent surge in the polls ahead of the 2027 election, pitched a series of measures to fundamentally rethink the EU’s agenda in his presidential platform unveiled Friday. Mélenchon also said he would disobey current EU rules that would prevent him from implementing his platform if elected.

Proposing a “new deal” for Europe, Mélenchon wants to redraft the treaties, ditch core parts of the EU’s rulebook — including debt and deficit limits — suspend competition rules for public services such as energy, transport and telecoms, and loosen state aid laws. “We will immediately implement our program at the national level. This will therefore require a confrontation with European institutions,” according to the manifesto from Mélenchon’s France Unbowed.

“This also means disobeying rules blocking [us] whenever necessary.” “Our logic is simple.