Interview: Left-wing populism, nationalism, and the limits of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s conversion strategy (Reid Kleinberg)
This interview is based on Reid Kleinberg’s article ‘The Firebrands Echo: National Fantasy as an Obstacle to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Populist Spectacle.’
Reid Kleinberg, “The Firebrands Echo: National Fantasy as an Obstacle to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Populist Spectacle,” Constellations, 2026, 1-11, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.70044.
The interview was conducted by Alex Yates.
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In this article you criticize what you term the ‘conversion strategy’, which claims that far-right voters can be integrated into left-populist coalitions using national symbols. What are some of the shortcomings of this strategy, as highlighted by the Mélenchon case, and to what extent do these limitations also apply to the calls from some on the anglophone left to embrace ‘progressive patriotism’?
First, I would say there are multiple ways that proponents of left-nationalism formulate the conversion strategy. There is a more superficial formulation that says that a sizable contingent of right-wing voters are simply ‘fence-sitters’, that they are not true believers in right-wing ideology but are motivated by instrumental reasons or the gravitas of a right-wing personality. This is the conversion strategy of the more technocratic left and left-republicanisms that think basically these voters can be won easily through messaging ‘or speaking their language’ by taking a boulder, more assertive national-cultural stance. This is a rationalist argument, proposing that these voters can be convinced by the soundness of left-wing messaging- that their interests (which are presumed to not be right-wing cultural interests but basic economic, representation, and social interests brought by alienation) are better represented in the left-nationalist camp. We don’t need to look hard at the Mélenchon case to see that this formulation is a farce. The political science literature, for all its faults on populism and the far-right, is quite clear and consistent in documenting that far-right voters in France are ideologically committed to and motivated by, specifically, the xenophobic nationalism of the Front national (the Rassemblement national since 2018). These voters have had their minds made up for the last decade and simply believe in insular, cultural-nationalism.
A more theoretically refined formulation of the conversion-strategy is rooted, I argue, in a misconstrued account of Laclauian theory. Laclau’s theory of populism itself is incomplete when it comes to the psychodynamic grip of ideologies on political subjects. Laclau does not go far enough in his integration of Lacanian psychoanalysis into his account of populism to explain how ideological belief is broken or how individuals become ‘detached’ from their ideological beliefs. A consequence is that conversion proponents have jumped a step and fixated on Laclau’s notion that emotional displays of collective identity (nationalist or otherwise) are a significant organizing tool without accounting for the existing belief. This is what the results of the Mélenchon campaign demonstrated in 2017, despite the explicit efforts to leverage an explicit, emotionally charged left-nationalism he did not attract a contingent of right-wing voters. I try to identify a possible theoretical mechanism of an ‘echo effect’ where Mélenchon’s campaign’s display of national discourse- because it did not address the preexisting belief of right-wing voters- simply amplified and entrenched these voters’ right-wing beliefs. To the extent that left-populist theory has simply ignored the genuine nature of right-wing ideological belief and has not developed or incorporated theoretical tools for ‘detaching’ or ‘opening’ beliefs we can expect this problem to persist in different cases including patriotic discourses.
As you mention in your article, in recent years, Mélenchon has embraced a ‘creolised’ discourse which has sought to integrate racialised communities into his coalition and focused on bringing voters out of abstention rather than chasing Rassemblement National supporters. With this in mind, to what degree is Mélenchon’s project still constrained by a nationalist horizon?
This is a significant open question that populism scholars and watchers of left-wing politics should be attuned to. The simple answer is it is too soon to know for sure and my budding historian’s instinct wants to say we should reserve strong judgement on this question until at least after the 2027 elections. As a good Essex School scholar, I will say it will ultimately be a question of how Mélenchon constructs his discourse in the future and the extent to which he emphasizes the nation as the grounds of authority running through his social, economic, and cultural policies as well as political imaginary. A couple of factors that come to mind is how will the French public receive this change-of-tune from Mélenchon? Will the move to creolisation be perceived as inauthentic given his 2010’s emphasis on republican-nationalism? Moreover, on a fundamental level, Mélenchon is a politician running to president of a nation-state- how open can one be to a post-nationalist or trans-nationalist project in such conditions?
A lot of theoretical work on left-wing populism draws, explicitly or implicitly, on Gramsci’s theory of the national-popular, which treats the nation as the primary terrain of political struggle. Are there other forms of left-wing populism, at the local or transnational level, which you see as more promising, or is the category of ‘the people’ too intimately tied to the nation to be emancipatory?
I have never been convinced by the argument that because Gramsci conceived of hegemonic politics through the lens of the national-popular that left-populism must in some sense be nationalist. This argument is basically bad political theory to me. Gramsci’s account is ultimately about the formation of hegemony- the creation of a shared social-political meaning by the intermixing and intercommunication of different cultural spheres. He attuned this account to the national level because that was the defining political context of his juncture. Why should political theorists of left-populism be restricted to thinking in Gramsci’s historical context when we deal with the contemporary world? Populism is ultimately a post-foundationalist political theory, so articulations of ‘the people’ have no essential referent; practically, to become hegemonic, articulations of ‘the people’ will be influenced by the communicative power of a signifier in its historical-social discursive context. I take the view that left-populism should always be attuned to a global horizon- for normative reasons- but also because we live in a globalized world. Contemporary left-populism has all the capacity to be organized transnationally. European left-parties and social movements in particular should not be excused for forgoing transnationalism- pan European institutions already exist (whatever one might think of the EU). The problem remains the always glaring gap between the “what ought to be done” and the “what is easy”. The route to transnational left-populism is simply a question of political will.
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Reid Kleinberg is a political theorist and Visiting Fellow with the Centre for Ideology and Discourse Analysis in the Department of Government at the University of Essex. His doctoral research explored the history of French nationalism and contemporary populism. His current project examines the political theory and history of transnational radical political movements in the 1960’s North Atlantic and the British experience of counterinsurgency. Reid has published with Crime, Media, Culture; Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory; and Theory and Event; and Aisthesis.
Alex Yates (he/him) is a doctoral researcher at the University of Bath. His research focuses on anti-populism in the UK, US and EU contexts. He has published in The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Politics, Political Studies Review, European Journal of Political Research and JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies.
Reid and Alex are members of the RPRN
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