Following the unrest in France this month, the country finds itself split between Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s project of a “new France” and Marine Le Pen’s call for “law and order”.

Triggered alongside the student revolt, the question of national identity has moved to the centre of the presidential race.

“This is Mélenchon’s ‘new France’,” said National Rally (RN) leader Jordan Bardella and Identity and Freedom (ID) party leader Marion Maréchal Le Pen, linking the scenes of violence directly to the phrase.

According to several recent speeches by the leader of France Unbowed (LFI), “new France” signifies a country transformed positively by immigration, women’s rights, shifting family structures, social mobility, and the political demands of younger generations.

Mélenchon contends that this optimistic vision can become a reality if voters elect him president next year.

Two Frances to clash this weekend

Yet as the April 2027 elections draw closer, Mélenchon’s vision of a “new France” has turned into a recurring target for Marine Le Pen’s party, the RN, because it encapsulates a fundamental rift over French identity.

While Le Pen’s party draws on nostalgia for a revived nationalist past, Mélenchon’s vision of a “new France” envisages a clean break with the old order.

These two visions appear set for a direct collision this weekend. Le Pen will stage a gathering in Orléans before 10,000 supporters, which RN officials say will focus on authority, French identity, and public order.

Mélenchon’s party, LFI, is expected to join demonstrations against the RN alongside other left-wing forces and trade unions in the historic French town associated with Joan of Arc, which Le Pen treats as a nationalist symbol.

Echoes of Sartre in “new France”: Change over essentialism

Defending the concept of “new France” against its critics, LFI argues that it cannot be understood without reading a little of the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and grasping the legacy accumulated from the left’s long ideological battles.

From a Sartrean perspective, “new France” is not a fixed, essentialist identity, but a fluid, changing reality.

Rather than declaring “this is who we are”, this outlook is grounded in “this is what we live through”, describing the varied realities confronted by precarious workers, women, people of non-French origin, and young voters.

According to this view, their lived experiences fit neither the right’s nor the left’s traditional national representations.

Mélenchon identifies women as the face of the “new France”. This category also encompasses blended families, young people, LGBT rights, long-distance commuters, and French citizens whose ancestors were born abroad.

Broadsides from the right, criticism from the left

Although he has used the phrase for years, pollsters note that it has become increasingly prominent as identity politics has come to occupy a larger share of his campaigning.

For critics across the political spectrum, “new France” implies casting “old France” aside.

Conservative Bruno Retailleau, for example, describes it as “the end of France”.

Former LFI ally François Ruffin criticises Mélenchon from the left. In Ruffin’s view, the LFI leader is trading class-based political appeal for an appeal directed at diverse urban electorates, sacrificing working-class towns and deindustrialised regions in the process.

Others dismiss the phrase as a slogan fabricated to drive polarisation across every cultural fault line.

Promoting the concept in May ahead of the French municipal elections, Mélenchon said: “The new France is not one part of France set against another; it is the whole of France.”

A month later, he noted that crowds at his rallies chanted “On est chez nous!” or “This is our home!”

Usually associated with far-right gatherings through the variant “France belongs to us”, the slogan, according to Rapporteur, offers a simpler expression of what the two camps are actually contesting: who gets to define French identity, and who feels at home in France.

The EU is developing plans to enhance its military mobility in the Arctic and aims to establish “multimodal military movement corridors” across the High North.

According to a report by German Foreign Policy, this initiative was outlined in the EU’s new Arctic strategy presented by the European Commission in Brussels on Tuesday.

Under the strategy, a complex logistics network consisting of “ports, airports, and their inland connections” will be created across the Arctic, designed to “remain operational even under adverse weather conditions.”

The strategy paper also announces that “exercises or stress tests” will be conducted to ensure the smooth deployment of military forces and capabilities to the Arctic.

Through this strategy, the EU is responding to the reality that climate change-driven Arctic ice melt is facilitating access to regional natural resources while opening new sea routes, such as the Northeast and Northwest Passages, which can now be used for both commercial and military operations.

The Arctic strategy aims for greater independence from the US and envisages laying a “pan-Arctic” submarine cable running from Europe through the polar region to East Asia.

Arctic natural resources

The EU’s new Arctic strategy addresses, among other topics, the natural resources located in the Arctic, both beneath the seabed and on land.

Due to thawing ice, these resources are already accessible or will soon become easier to reach, and Brussels supports their extraction.

Specific projects highlighted include a rare earth element extraction venture near Kiruna in northernmost Sweden and a plan to mine molybdenum in eastern Greenland.

Departing from its previous 2021 Arctic strategy, the Commission no longer advocates an outright ban on oil, gas, and coal extraction in the Arctic within a multilateral framework.

This policy shift comes as Norway has emerged as the bloc’s most vital natural gas supplier, providing approximately 30% of all its natural gas imports following the EU’s phased reduction of Russian energy imports.

However, production from Norway’s existing fields is expected to decline in the 2030s. Consequently, Norway plans to explore new deposits in the Barents Sea, where vast reserves are estimated to lie.

Dependent on raw material supplies from Norway as well as strategic cooperation with Oslo, the EU no longer opposes these exploration plans.

New sea routes opened by melting ice

The EU is also turning its attention to the gradual opening of new Arctic shipping routes.

For instance, the Northeast Passage, running along Russia’s northern coastline from East Asia to Europe, is now open to navigation between August and October.

This route is considerably shorter than the conventional transit via the Indian Ocean, significantly reducing shipping costs, especially in light of current oil prices.

A Chinese shipping firm launched regular services via the Northeast Passage this summer, while a South Korean vessel recently returned to the port of Busan after completing its maiden commercial voyage along the corridor.

Although used by few vessels to date, the Northwest Passage has also come into operation as a route extending from the North Atlantic through Canada’s northern archipelago and north of Alaska toward East Asia.

Experts believe that, during the summer months, this passage could offer advantages over the traditional route via the Panama Canal “for certain vessel types and transport routes.”

The emergence of new military capabilities was underscored in September when four Russian warships navigated the Shokalsky Strait between two Russian Arctic islands for the first time in history.

Military mobility in the High North

This development represents another driver behind the EU’s new Arctic Strategy placing particular emphasis on military aspects.

Russia has been strengthening its Arctic military positions for some time, partly because the headquarters of its Northern Fleet, which hosts part of its second-strike capability, is located on its north-western coast, and partly because its exceptionally long northern coastline remains strategically vulnerable.

NATO has likewise been expanding its activities in the Arctic considerably, holding numerous exercises across northern Finland, Sweden, and Norway, as well as in Iceland and Greenland, alongside its new “Operation Arctic Sentry.”

The strategy document states that the EU must now strengthen its own posture in the Arctic.

This objective is to be pursued both in cooperation with NATO and through independent EU measures.

For example, situational awareness must be enhanced, including by leveraging EU satellite systems, particularly Copernicus and Galileo.

Additionally, the planned IRIS2 satellite constellation, conceived as Europe’s counterpart to Starlink, should be expanded to cover the Arctic to improve communications.

To coordinate these initiatives, the EU plans to establish a Maritime Security Centre.

The EU places special emphasis on military mobility in the Arctic. According to the document, rapid and large-scale troop deployments must be feasible in the region at any time if required.

To this end, “multimodal military movement corridors” incorporating ports, airports, and their inland connections need to be established.

These facilities will be designed as a unified, complex logistics system “capable of remaining operational even under adverse weather conditions.”

Realising this plan will require preparation for “ice clearance,” “the handling of heavy and oversized military vehicles on frozen ground,” and “the rapid repair of damaged infrastructure.”

Looking ahead, the EU is urged to organize “exercises or stress tests focused on the smooth deployment of forces and military capabilities to and within the Arctic” in cooperation with NATO or like-minded partners.

Viewing these capabilities as vital for “credible deterrence,” the EU also underscores the need for its own icebreaker fleet to clear pathways through the ice for warships.

The Arctic’s role in “strategic autonomy” vis-a-vis the US

Throughout this process, the EU is not only adopting a clear stance toward Russia, but is also pursuing greater independence from the US.

On one hand, the strategy encourages deepening ties with Greenland, which is part of Denmark, does not belong to the EU, and has faced threats of US annexation. The document designates this relationship as a cornerstone of the new Arctic strategy.

On the other hand, the text calls for intensifying cooperation as part of a “Northern Neighbourhood” strategy with Norway, Iceland, and Canada, as well as with the UK, which occupies a strategically advantageous position despite not being an Arctic coastal state.

The EU maintains a security and defence dialogue with Norway, holding its fifth session this past April, alongside launching an “Arctic Dialogue” with Oslo this year.

Canada is classified by the European Commission as a “natural ally” in the Arctic. Observers note that while Canada is mentioned dozens of times throughout the strategy, the US is cited only a handful of times.

This contrast is seen as evidence that the EU is seeking independence from Washington in the High North.

Accordingly, the document explicitly references “European strategic autonomy” as an “integral component of the Arctic.”

Pan-Arctic cable plan extending to Japan

The EU Arctic Strategy also identifies Japan and South Korea as cooperation partners in the region.

This partnership is linked to plans to connect Greenland to the EU via a submarine cable, which would subsequently be extended across the Bering Strait to Japan and South Korea.

Berlin has advocated the construction of such a “pan-Arctic cable” for some time.

According to a statement issued in early July by the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), such an infrastructure project is highly desirable for multiple reasons.

First, data traffic between Europe and Asia, 90% of which currently passes through the Red Sea and the strait between Djibouti and Yemen (Bab el-Mandeb), “suffers from a high failure rate and a lack of redundancy.”

Furthermore, the Arctic route is “significantly shorter,” resulting in reduced latency and fewer transmission delays.

International equity trading in particular stands to benefit from “real-time data transmission” enabled by a new polar cable link.

SWP outlines two potential routes for the cable: one running west of Greenland and the other running east.

German Defence Ministry officials have advised Berlin to form a new fighter jet partnership with Sweden and Spain rather than join an existing UK-led consortium.

Internal ministry assessment notes obtained by Politico state that a trilateral arrangement among Germany, Sweden, and Spain represents a “more advantageous and promising” approach than joining the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) run by the UK, Italy, and Japan.

The proposal outlined in the document does not yet represent a final government decision, nor does it contain any indication that German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has approved the recommendation.

The advice was drafted after Germany’s flagship project with France to build a next-generation fighter jet collapsed in June following years of industrial infighting.

Initiated in 2017 and later joined by Spain, the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) was conceived as a showcase initiative for European defence cooperation. The partnership aimed to develop an aircraft to replace Germany’s Eurofighter fleet starting in 2040.

However, the initiative foundered on disputes over operational control and workshare between France-based Dassault and Germany-based Airbus Defence and Space. Following unsuccessful rescue attempts at the political level, Berlin withdrew from the joint fighter project this year.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham raised the prospect of Germany joining GCAP during an 8 October meeting in Berlin with Friedrich Merz. The two leaders agreed that officials should continue discussions.

For Berlin, the choice carries implications that reach far beyond which model its air force will fly. The decision will determine who controls future military technology, which countries secure production contracts, and whether a new European partnership can avoid the frictions that dismantled FCAS.

Ministry assessment keeps distance from UK-partnered GCAP project

The ministry assessment listed several reservations regarding the GCAP project. The report argued that the existing programme focuses on operations beyond Germany’s capability requirements, whereas Berlin needs an aircraft better suited for missions over continental Europe.

The document also noted that German manufacturers would struggle to secure a significant share of development and production work within an already established partnership.

Invoking past experiences with the Eurofighter programme, which was developed in the 1990s and entered service in the early 2000s, the document took direct aim at British defence contractor BAE Systems.

The German Defence Ministry assessment accused BAE Systems of prioritizing exports over the development interests of Germany and Italy, warning that British dominance would prove incompatible with an equal partnership.

By contrast, the document stated that the military requirements of Germany, Sweden, and Spain align closely and that their starting positions are well balanced.

The assessment proposed an industrial partnership between aerospace giant Airbus and Sweden’s Saab, while recommending that the Saab-manufactured Gripen E fighter jet serve as a technological stepping stone until the new aircraft is developed.

The German Defence Ministry declined to comment on the matter. A separate ministry note, however, recorded British efforts to integrate Germany into GCAP as an observer or participant, asking German officials to examine potential industrial roles and military requirements.

An Airbus spokesperson said the company was “generally open to cooperation”, provided that German and Spanish industry secured a “substantial and equal role” across development, production, and operational phases.

“Purely political decisions without an industrial foundation remain insufficient,” the spokesperson said, urging authorities in Berlin and Madrid to clarify the path forward swiftly.

In an interview published in Handelsblatt on Monday, Airbus defence chief Michael Schollhorn pointed to ties with Saab, noting that the two companies have always worked well together.

A Saab spokesperson also indicated that the company is receptive to broad defence cooperation, including in fighter aircraft.

Emphasizing that large-scale collaborative projects are handled at the political level and that participation decisions rest with the respective governments, the spokesperson said: “All questions regarding potential Swedish participation should be directed to the Swedish government. Saab stands ready, as always, to support Sweden’s future fighter aircraft requirements.”