Left-wing populism and Muslim minorities 

Much work on populism reveals how populists mean different things when they claim to represent the real ‘people’ in the fight against the ‘elite’. A recent blog piece for this series makes precisely this point. Radical right-wing populism tends to advance nativist policies against ethnic and religious minorities, as evidenced by its anti-immigration and Islamophobic rhetoric.

Conversely, left-wing populists show a more inclusive attitude towards immigration and Muslims. They reject biased narratives, such as that Islam is incompatible with Western values, or that Muslims tend towards religious fundamentalism. Hence, populist leaders associate insecurity with different problems.

As Donatella Bonansinga has explained, the way the populist radical-right politician Marine Le Pen ‘securitises’ cultural threats, such as immigration, differs from the approach of another French politician, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, on the populist radical left. Mélenchon tends to frame other societal issues, such as climate change and capitalism, as the true threats to French security.   

Left-wing populist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon casts climate change and capitalism – not Islam – as the true threats to French security

Yet, left-wing populists like Mélenchon share a historical and ideological background marked by hostility towards religion. From 2009 until the early 2010s, Mélenchon (then a Socialist Party Senator) endorsed the 2004 law prohibiting visible religious symbols in state schools. He also backed the 2010 law banning the full-face veil in public. On the niqab, Mélenchon argued that 'servitude, even if voluntary, is neither more acceptable nor more legitimate'. His stance was a common one among French left-leaning, progressive and feminist intellectuals. In 2015, Mélenchon even tweeted that he 'contested the word Islamophobia, as one has the right not to love Islam as not to love Catholicism'. The place of Islam in the left-wing populist understanding of security clearly needs unpacking.  

Replacing securitisation  

A left-wing populist, Mélenchon imagines Muslims as a key cohort of the new French popular classes. He sees them as racialised subjects who suffer discrimination and socio-economic marginalisation. Thus, to Mélenchon, ‘the people’ means ‘plebs’ or ‘[lower] class’, rather than a culturally homogeneous community. Some, such as former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, argued that Mélenchon’s party La France Insoumise (LFI) has ‘buried’ laïcité to endorse communitarian and pro-Islam positions. In fact, LFI still stresses the importance of laïcité – French left-wing parties' traditional conception of secularism. It accepts, for instance, that people should not wear religious symbols in schools or public-service contexts. Mélenchon’s words also reveal a belief that rather than fostering social cohesion, religion often serves to fragment society. 

Despite rejecting the securitisation of Islam, my recent article found that 50% of Mélenchon's blog posts between 2009 and 2022 retain a populist understanding of security based on a friend-versus-enemy logic and virulent anti-elitism. Mélenchon refuses to use securitarian language against Muslims; instead, he uses threats he judges more frightening. These include climate change, far-right parties, financial oligarchies, and President Emmanuel Macron's ‘authoritarian drift’. In this respect, the well-known slogan ‘the enemy is the banker, not the Muslims!’ represents de-securitisation by replacement.

Mélenchon’s party still stresses the importance of laïcité – the French conception of secularism traditionally upheld by left-wing parties

Left-wing populism has been transformative for Muslims and other marginalised socio-economic groups in France. It might, however, have unintentionally escalated conflictual dynamics against other groups it considers undeserving enemies. After the October 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel's consequent war on Palestinians, LFI continued to denounce pro-Israel and Islamophobic narratives in French politics. This attracted allegations that the party was hiding antisemitic ideas under anti-Zionist discourse – similar to the allegations levelled against former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. In line with Dani Filc’s argument, this ambivalence confirms that the left-wing populist inclusionary character is limited, not universal. 

Mélenchon’s evolution on Islamophobia 

My findings reveal Mélenchon’s growing interest in tackling Islamophobia. Yet, the march against Islamophobia on 10 November 2019, following the Bayonne Mosque shooting, did not provoke a U-turn in Mélenchon’s position. Since at least 2013, Mélenchon has opposed treating Islam as a security threat. He has chastised the French government's 'feverish' reaction to terrorist attacks through 'warlike vocabulary and vengeful posture'. This, he believed, risked worsening tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims.  

Mélenchon stuck by these arguments even after the 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo in January, and Paris and Saint-Denis in November. Despite condemning jihadist terrorism, Mélenchon warned that people shouldn't consider terrorism a purely Muslim-related phenomenon. He lamented that the Socialist Party’s counterterrorism policies were 'dangerous and ineffective' and would require increased intelligence to implement mass surveillance. He convincingly rejected the 2016 State of Emergency called by former President François Hollande, which led to discrimination towards Muslims, arguing that securitisation does not effectively stop terrorism. Again in 2020, Mélenchon denounced the 'inflation of security policies whose efficacy has never been tested'. Instead, he recommended a 'rational' approach to tackle terrorism.

Mélenchon has opposed treating Islam as a security threat, chastising the French government's 'feverish' reaction to terrorist attacks

Mélenchon rejected securitisation on moral, rather than instrumental grounds, arguing that it poses a danger to Muslims. Securitisation, he claims, fractures French society by stigmatising the whole community because of the actions of a violent minority. Instead, de-securitisation supports the empowerment of securitised subjects, transforming their place in society. Mélenchon has also changed his stance on Islamophobia and on the veil, which he had previously associated with female submission. Indeed, Mélenchon frequently maintains that Islamophobia is ‘as dangerous as antisemitism’ and that creolisation has rendered France a racially and culturally diverse society that the French should embrace, not reject. 

Striking a balance: maintaining fragile coalitions 

So, Mélenchon managed to de-securitise Islam by including Muslims in his vision of the French ‘people’, without substantially challenging laïcité. But for left-wing populists struggling to maintain delicate coalitions between ethno-religious minorities and more secular constituencies, there is a danger that a Mélenchon-style strategy might create tension between these two sections of society.

No.98 in a Loop series on the 🔮 Future of Populism

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