France Unbowed, the party of far-left presidential hopeful Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has written a plan to leave NATO in its official platform, released Friday. The 222-page program calls for an immediate withdrawal from NATO's integrated command, followed by a staged exit from the organization itself.
The platform also rejects the 5% of GDP defense spending target that the United States has demanded. It would nationalize some of France's main defense companies, including ArianeGroup.
France would still assist European Union countries under EU treaties, according to the document. Unlike the far-right party of Marine Le Pen, France Unbowed does not explicitly say it would stop aiding Ukraine. It does call for a diplomatic solution, with any peace agreement resting on "collective security guarantees, between the belligerents and with the rest of Europe."
The party wants tighter arms controls, including on lethal autonomous weapons and nuclear weapons. It would close NATO's space center in Toulouse and argues France should acquire a space shuttle. Lawmakers from the party have previously pushed for France to buy Dassault Aviation's Vortex, a European reusable orbital spaceplane program.
The platform says France should produce more "critical enablers," such as military communications, intelligence and logistics equipment, which are currently mostly supplied by the United States through NATO. The party wrote that these "must be produced as a matter of priority."
According to POLITICO, polls increasingly place Mélenchon in second place in next year's presidential election. A more detailed defense platform will be released later, a France Unbowed lawmaker told POLITICO.