Podcast: Jacobin Radio (LS 60 · TOP 0.1% what is this?)
Episode: Long Reads: Decoding the French Left w/ Sebastian Budgen (Part 1)
Pub date: 2026-04-09

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Two years ago, the French president Emmanuel Macron called snap elections for the National Assembly. The far right was widely expected to win and form a government for the first time since the fall of the Vichy regime, but things didn’t work out that way. The New Popular Front, a left-wing electoral alliance, won a surprise victory.

Sebastian Budgen, senior editor at Verso, joins Long Reads to discuss the state of the French left. Daniel and Sebastian look in particular at La France Insoumise, which has been one of the most successful parties of the radical left in any European country since the start of the decade.

This is a two-part interview. The first part is going to focus on events between the election in 2024 and the start of this year. In our next episode, we’ll be looking at this year’s election results and looking forward to the presidential contest in 2027.

Read the article from Politico that Daniel and Sebastian discuss in the interview: https://www.politico.eu/article/french-left-new-popular-front-alliance-uk-labour-party-raphael-glucksmann-jean-luc-melenchon-jeremy-corbyn/

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies with music by Knxwledge.

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