Paris, February 15, 2026 – In the wake of the controversy sparked by the Interior Ministry’s decision to classify La France insoumise as extreme left-wing for the 2026 municipal elections, Ifop surveyed French people on their perception of this classification for Fiducial and Sud Radio. Carried out among a representative national sample of over 1,500 French people, the survey shows that this ranking arouses a consensus in opinion that isolates LFI within the left.
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In a circular dated February 2, 2026 concerning the political nuances of candidates for the municipal elections, the Ministry of the Interior for the first time classified La France insoumise (LFI) in the “extreme left” bloc, alongside the Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA), Lutte ouvrière or the Parti ouvrier indépendant. La France insoumise immediately challenged this classification and **announced an appeal to the Conseil d’Etat**, accusing the government of trying to put the movement “on the same level as the Rassemblement national”.
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MAIN FINDINGS
- The Ministry of the Interior’s classification met with widespread approval: 70% of French people felt that La France insoumise’s classification as extreme left-wing was justified, compared to just 30% who thought the opposite. This level of support places this administrative decision in the category of public policy measures enjoying broad popular support.
- LFI’s classification is widely supported by left-wing voters: 65% of socialist sympathizers and 71% of ecologist sympathizers find it justified, a sign of the ideological divide between LFI and the rest of the left. And the fact that almost half of New Popular Front voters (49%) validate this ranking indicates that LFI is perceived as distinct from the rest of the 2024 electoral coalition.
- The opposition of the Insoumis leaders to this decision is not unanimous in their own ranks: 40% of Melenchonist voters in the last presidential election and a third of current Insoumis supporters (34%) find this ranking justified.
Ifop’s viewpoint
The announced appeal to the Conseil d’Etat therefore appears to be a legal battle whose outcome seems largely already decided in public opinion, our study showing the limits of an assumed but potentially costly strategy of radicalization: the arguments put forward by the Ministry of the Interior – rejection of parliamentarianism, systematic calls for censorship – seem to be validated by public opinion, suggesting that LFI’s strategy of positioning itself in frontal opposition to the “system” has a considerable image cost, comparable to that long borne by the Rassemblement national. With so many French people considering LFI to be a far-left party, the movement risks coming up against an electoral glass ceiling similar to that experienced by the RN. This radicalism makes it difficult for the movement to extend its electoral reach, as was the case in the second round of the Villeneuve-Saint-Georges municipal elections (January 2025), when an anti-LFI barrage defeated Louis Boyard in a municipality that was sociologically favorable to him.
