‘We need to change everything’: Mélenchon uses Le Bourget rally to press home his programme

Supporters from across France have come to attend the major rally staged this Saturday near Paris by the hard-left movement La France Insoumise, LFI, or France Unbowed. According to organisers, 20,000 people attended the meeting to hear LFI leaders unfold presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon's programme for what he calls a new France. Among supporters, many high school students, but also workers and trade unionists. Youth has been a great forget of the Macron program during the government. There are a lot of things that we have lost, we still have a lot to lose. And that's why today we take the exit door, which is here today with LFI. Me, as a unionist, obviously, Mélenchon, it brings a project, it's to put the employees, the people, the little people back at the heart of the system. We have left public service. On an educational level, on a medical level, the conditions have deteriorated. Most of the staff can't take it anymore. We absolutely have to change that. Pledging to raise the monthly minimum wage to 1,700 euros, gradually lower retirement age at 60, the programme wants to overhaul educational health systems and a sweeping ecological transformation. It also promises massive public investments largely funded by higher taxes on the wealthy. Since 2017, we have increased inequalities as never before, and inequalities particularly go into the hands of certain people. With 18% in opinion polls, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his party have gained momentum, but still lag far behind Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen's 37% of voting intentions.