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Left Party (France)

French political party

Field	Value
name	Left Party
native_name	Parti de gauche
native_name_lang	fr
logo	File:Nouveau logotype PG.svg
logo_size	250px
colorcode
abbreviation	PG
leader1_title	Coordinators
leader1_name	Éric Coquerel
Danielle Simonnet
founders	Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Marc Dolez
founded
split	Socialist Party
newspaper	L'Insoumission Hebdo
(until 2022)
headquarters	20–22 Rue Doudeauville, 75018 Paris
membership_year	2018
membership	6,000{{cite news
title	Au Parti de gauche, un congrès pour continuer d'exister
url	https://www.lemonde.fr/la-france-insoumise/article/2018/06/29/au-parti-de-gauche-un-congres-pour-continuer-d-exister_5323155_5126047.html
newspaper	Le Monde	author=Abel Mestre	date=29 June 2018	access-date=30 June 2018
ideology	{{ubl	class=nowrap
Democratic socialism<ref name	"Nordsieck"{{cite web
title	France
url	http://parties-and-elections.eu/france.html
archive-url	https://web.archive.org/web/20170320092000/http://parties-and-elections.eu/france.html
last	Nordsieck	first=Wolfram	year=2012	archive-date=20 March 2017	url-status=dead	website=Parties and Elections in Europe
title	Adrift in a Zéro-Polaire World
url	https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/05/adrift-in-a-zero-polaire-world/
last	Zaretsky	first=Robert	website=Foreign Policy	date=5 September 2013
access-date	2022-06-07
title	The French Far Right Won Big This Weekend
url	https://www.vice.com/en/article/France-far-right-elections-FN-Hollande-Le-Pen/
website	Vice.com	date=April 2014
access-date	2022-06-07
url	http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/le-pen-melenchon-la-mode-est-au-langage-populiste_1237437.html
title	Le Pen-Mélenchon: la mode est au langage populiste	author=Denis Tugdual	work=L'Express	language=fr	date=5 April 2013
title	Le populisme "vintage" de Jean-Luc Mélenchon, trop élaboré pour être efficace
url	http://www.slate.fr/story/70687/melenchon-populisme-vintage
author	Jean-Laurent Cassely	work=Slate	language=fr	date=15 April 2013
Left-wing nationalism<ref>{{Cite magazine	title	Meet Europe's Left Nationalists	url=https://www.thenation.com/article/meet-europes-left-nationalists/	first=David	last=Adler	date=January 10, 2019	magazine=The Nation	access-date=May 23, 2019	archive-date=January 10, 2019	archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190110172734/https://www.thenation.com/article/meet-europes-left-nationalists/	url-status=dead }}}}
position	Left-wing to far-left
national	New Popular Front (2024–present)
New Ecological and Social People's Union (2022–2024)
europarl	The Left in the European Parliament
colours	Red
Green
seats1_title	National Assembly
seats1
seats2_title	Senate
seats2
seats3_title	European Parliament
seats3
seats4_title	Regional Councils
seats4
website
country	France
flag	Parti de Gauche drapeau.svg

Danielle Simonnet Marc Dolez (until 2022) |Democratic socialism{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320092000/http://parties-and-elections.eu/france.html |access-date=2022-06-07 |access-date=2022-06-07 |Left-wing populism{{cite news |Left-wing nationalism}} New Ecological and Social People's Union (2022–2024) Green

The Left Party (French: Parti de gauche, PG) is a left-wing to far-left, democratic socialist political party in France, founded in 2009 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marc Dolez after their departure from the Socialist Party (PS). The PG claims to bring together personalities and groups from different political traditions; it claims a socialist, ecologist and republican orientation.

Politically located between the Socialist Party and the French Communist Party, the Left Party intends to federate all the sensitivities of the anti-liberal left—which they also call "the other left"—within the same alliance. In 2008, the PG joined forces with the Communist Party of the United Left and six other left-wing and far-left organizations in the coalition of the Left Front, of which Jean-Luc Mélenchon was the candidate for the presidential election.

The PG was co-chaired from 2010 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Martine Billard. In 2016, the Left Party had 8,000 members. At the end of 2014, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Martine Billard resigned, and the party leadership was then collectively ensured by the national secretariat. The weekly newspaper, L'Intérêt général (formerly À gauche) is sent to all members but also to simple subscribers. It is printed at more than 15,000 copies a week.

In 2016, in view of the presidential and legislative elections of the following year, Jean-Luc Mélenchon formed a new movement, La France Insoumise, that the Left Party helped to animate.

History

People march waving flags during a demonstration against expulsions of foreign students on 5 November 2013 in Toulouse.

It was founded in November 2008 by former Socialist senator Jean-Luc Mélenchon, deputy Marc Dolez, and other dissidents of the party together with the MARS movement (Mouvement pour une Alternative Républicaine et Sociale, "Movement for a Republican and Social Alternative").

They had left the PS five days earlier, in protest of the result of the Reims Congress vote on motions, where the leftist motion they supported won only 19%.

They were joined after by other members from the left of the Socialist Party, by people who hadn't been members of a political party before, and by dissidents from the Green Party following the deputy Martine Billard.

In 2010 the PG was accepted into the Party of the European Left.

In November 2013, the PG joined the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131121182203/http://www.lepartidegauche.fr/actualites/communique/le-parti-gauche-s-engage-dans-les-campagnes-boycott-desinvestissement-sanctions-l-egard-d-israel-25718 |archive-date=2013-11-21

Co-presidents and co-founders Mélenchon and stepped down from office in 2014.{{cite news |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140905102743/http://www.english.rfi.fr/france/20140822-french-far-left-leader-steps-down-not-leaving-politics |archive-date=5 September 2014 |url-status=dead Since its 2015 congress, the party is led by its coordinators and spokespersons Éric Coquerel and Danielle Simonnet.{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604030229/https://www.lepartidegauche.fr/instance/le-secretariat-executif-national-parti-gauche-32929 |archive-date=2016-06-04

On 2 July 2018 the party withdrew from the Party of the European Left, disagreeing with the presence of the Greek left-wing party Syriza in the alliance.

The party advocates eco-socialism as an alternative to capitalism, stating that:

La Meute, an investigative book published in 2025 by journalists Charlotte Belaïch and Olivier Pérou, reports alleged autocratic and cult‑like tendencies within the party—claims of intolerance to dissent and strong influence by Mélenchon and partner Sophia Chikirou. The movement's leaders pushed back, but critics and former insiders gave weight to the allegations.

In June 2025, it was reported by Le Monde that the Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front) – an electoral alliance of LFI, Socialists, Greens, and Communists – is facing internal divisions, even as it attempts to unify the left.

Elected officials

Member of the European Parliament: Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Around 90 locally-elected officials (municipal, regional and general councillors), including two members of the Council of Paris, initially joined the party. This number has dropped since then.

Popular support and electoral record

The PG has yet to run independently in an election, so support base is difficult to quantify.

National Assembly

Election	Leader	Votes (first round)	Seats	Result	Notes	No.	%	No.	±	[2012](2012-french-legislative-election)
Jean-Luc Mélenchon	1,793,192	6.91		8

European Parliament

Election year	Number of votes	% of overall vote	# of seats won	[2009](2009-european-parliament-election-in-france)	[2014](2014-european-parliament-election-in-france)
1,115,021	6.47%	1
1,252,730	6.61%	1

References

Adler, David. (January 10, 2019). "Meet Europe's Left Nationalists".
(16 December 2020). "France promises €5 million to fight period poverty". The Local France.
(2016-11-21). "Nicolas Sarkozy has left France's presidential race with a warning about lurching to 'extremes'".
(10 August 2015). "Paris beach party under fire for 'indecent' Tel Aviv theme".
Holman, Rachel. (March 12, 2013). "French far-left leader reveals assets, weight, shoe size".
Croft, Adrian. (April 5, 2017). "Far-left showman shakes up French presidential election".
Elliatt, Holly. (July 8, 2024). "France avoided a far-right election win — now the radical far left is demanding power".
Noack, Rick. (April 24, 2017). "France's far-left failed to get its 'Bernie Sanders' elected. The far-right could be the winner.".
(2017-03-31). "Why French left-wingers are turning to Jean-Luc Mélenchon".
[https://www.lepartidegauche.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/programmepartidegauche2016.pdf PROGRAMME DU PARTI DE GAUCHE Convention programmatique du 27 et 28 mars 2016, P.10]
(2024-10-08). "In France, the pro-Palestinian movement is co-opted by the radical left".
(2022-04-12). "After a surprise victory, can France's left plot a course to 2027?".
(2025-06-20). "The dashed hopes of France's left-wing alliance". Le Monde.
Results of the [[Left Front (France). Left Front]] which includes the larger [[French Communist Party]]
Of the 5 Left Front MEP, 1 is a member of the PG
Of the 4 Left Front MEP, 1 is a member of the PG

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

2008-establishments-in-france alter-globalization democratic-socialist-parties-in-europe eurosceptic-parties-in-france la-france-insoumise organizations-involved-in-the-israeli–palestinian-conflict parties-represented-in-the-european-parliament party-of-the-european-left-former-member-parties political-parties-established-in-2008 political-parties-of-the-french-fifth-republic socialist-parties-in-france jean-luc-mélenchon

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