Mélenchon Puts €1,700 Minimum Wage and Retirement at 60 at Center of 2027 Bid

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Jean-Luc Mélenchon launched his 2027 presidential program on Saturday with a direct offer to French workers: raise the net monthly minimum wage to €1,700, reverse Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform and restore retirement at 60 after 40 years of contributions.

The program, titled L’Avenir en commun — “A Shared Future” — makes the distribution of work, income and power the organizing question of the campaign. La France Insoumise published the 212-page platform on November 6 and launched it publicly on November 7. The movement says the full version contains 1,069 measures, with 795 presented online.

The wage promise would lift the SMIC from roughly €1,480 net a month to €1,700 and index it to inflation. A bill introduced by LFI lawmakers in the National Assembly describes that as a 16.55% increase. The platform also calls for an immediate return to the 35-hour workweek, a 32-hour week in physically demanding occupations and a sixth week of paid leave.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon speaking during an international-affairs debate in January 2026 — Jean-Luc Mélenchon during an international-affairs debate on January 20, 2026. Photo: jlm2017.fr via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0; cropped from the original.

The pension proposal is deliberately staged. Mélenchon would first repeal Macron’s reform, which raised the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, and then restore the right to retire at 60 with a full pension after 40 years of contributions. The program says higher contributions and a levy on dividends would help fund the system, while pensions would again be indexed to wages.

That sequencing matters. France’s pension fight has already produced some of the largest strikes and demonstrations in recent European history. Mélenchon is not presenting retirement at 60 as an isolated benefit. He is making it part of a broader transfer of security toward wage earners — alongside limits on precarious contracts, a presumption of employee status for platform workers and a ban on stock-market layoffs by firms paying dividends or receiving public aid.

The platform also proposes capping prices on essential foods, giving households a free first tranche of electricity, gas, water and heat, and building 200,000 highly ecological public homes each year for five years. It promises full reimbursement through the public health system and an end to the Parcoursup selection system for higher education.

LFI says its 2027 budget would raise €106.4 billion in new revenue, spend €81.7 billion and devote the remaining €24.7 billion to deficit reduction. The movement places much of the burden on large fortunes and major companies, including a wealth tax and the abolition of the flat tax on capital income. Whether those figures survive hostile scrutiny will be a central test of the campaign. But the program at least states who should pay, rather than treating lower wages, later retirement and weaker public services as economic laws.

The ecological break is equally sharp. Mélenchon proposes ending the planned EPR2 nuclear-reactor program and moving toward a fully renewable electricity system. On foreign policy, he maintains France’s non-aligned course and calls for a gradual withdrawal from NATO, beginning with its integrated military command.

The launch places a clear class divide inside an election increasingly shaped by the far right. Reuters reported that recent polling puts Mélenchon in contention to reach the second round against Marine Le Pen, though those surveys show him losing the runoff. Polls this far from the vote are not verdicts, but they help explain why the program emphasizes concrete material gains instead of a vague appeal to unity.

The conflict is already visible beyond France. London Underground drivers have called eight strike days over the working week, while French workers recently mounted a nationwide cost-of-living strike under heavy police deployment. The argument over who gets time, wages and security is not confined to one campaign.

Mélenchon’s wager is that a left program can name those interests plainly. At its core, L’Avenir en commun says workers should earn more, work less and retire earlier — and that capital should finance the shift. France’s 2027 election will test whether that clarity can become a governing majority.