The same trend takes different forms elsewhere in Europe. Young voters are turning away from traditional parties and showing greater openness to groups that challenge the established order – on both the left and the right, as the example of young British men drawn to Reform UK shows. In France, that rejection of the mainstream has primarily benefited the far left.

The Radical Left Has Become the Cultural Norm

Mélenchon appeals to young people not only because he promises greater redistribution. He speaks to them using what some have come to regard as the vocabulary of progress: anti-racism, decolonization, climate change, the fight against discrimination, immigration, equality for minorities, “systemic violence” – all of these concerns have become central to the cultural worldview of a section of the younger generation. La France Insoumise has realized that it is not enough simply to propose a political platform; instead, it is banking on its ability to offer a framework for interpreting the world.

Mélenchon’s platform is perfectly tailored to this generation: a basic income for young people, an “ecological shift”, the fight against “all forms of racism”, the elimination of selective admissions at universities and the expansion of social rights. Everything is designed to turn material grievances – precarious living conditions, difficulty finding housing, job insecurity – into political demands shaped by this worldview.

The tendency to vote for the left is evident among young people who have recently finished school. For years, some parents’ associations have denounced the ideological bias of teachers they accuse of promoting this Mélenchonist worldview in the classroom. Starting in primary school – from group workshops to field trips – successive generations of pupils have been indoctrinated with ideas of cultural relativism, the virtues of recycling, acceptance of diversity and contempt for traditional French history – which is invariably presented as oppressive.

This is not to say that the French education system is a factory for Mélenchonist voters, but it is hard to deny that young French people have grown up in an intellectual environment where multiculturalism, decolonialism, militant anti-racism and environmentalism play a prominent role.

The political profile of teachers reinforces this point. In the 2022 presidential election, Mélenchon garnered 25% of the vote among teachers, nearly on par with Emmanuel Macron (26%), while Marine Le Pen received only 10%.

The Reality Check

There is, however, a small glimmer of hope for those who refuse to consider this generation a lost cause.

Support for Mélenchon declines slightly with age. The Cluster17 poll, which showed him at 42% among 18- to 24-year-olds, put him at 36% among 25- to 34-year-olds. The gap is modest, but real. How can this decline be explained? Life can eventually teach some painful lessons that school never did. At age 20, politics can remain largely theoretical. By 30, people have to find a job, pay rent or make loan payments, pay taxes, arrange childcare, deal with bureaucracy, worry about the safety of their neighborhood and discover that public funds are not unlimited.

Ideals do not necessarily disappear, but sooner or later they come into conflict with reality. Attracted by the promises of Mélenchon and his party, young voters may view the government as capable of providing an endless supply of solutions in the form of income support, public services, expanded rights and redistribution. Those who begin working and paying for these policies inevitably have to confront the other side of the equation: who finances all of this?

“He who is not a socialist at nineteen has no heart; he who is still a socialist at thirty has no head” is an old maxim that has been attributed to various writers and political figures over the years.

Investing in the Future

Winning over the next generation will be a major challenge in the 2027 presidential campaign. Young voters represent a significant share of the electorate and could play a decisive role in the election.

In a runoff between Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen, 64% of 18- to 24-year-olds would choose Mélenchon, compared with 36% for the Rassemblement National candidate.

We can therefore expect an outright bidding war for the youth vote from the left during the campaign: a proliferation of social promises, increasingly radical environmentalism, identity-based rhetoric, a constant condemnation of the far right and the framing of the political divide as a conflict between supposedly progressive young people and an older population deemed reactionary.

The right would be making a major strategic mistake by ceding this territory. While Marine Le Pen can take credit for successfully reaching out to retirees who were previously hostile to her, this must not come at the cost of abandoning young people. And in that respect, Jordan Bardella’s removal from her campaign carries some risk. Bardella possesses a rare ability to speak directly to a segment of younger voters and to present himself as the face of a new generation. Leaving Mélenchon uncontested among young voters would give the left a considerable cultural advantage.

The leftward lean among young voters raises a fundamental issue, which must remain a priority well beyond the 2027 presidential election. Today’s polls show us that young people are not inherently left-leaning, but that they have been shaped by an environment that pushes them in that direction. This is a cultural battle that the right has until now largely left to its opponents. The right’s roadmap for the future should now be quite clear.