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International audience; This article proposes to explore the interaction between populism and environmentalism in the discourse of populist radical left parties, through a case study of Jean-Luc Melenchon's parties, Parti de gauche (2008-2016) and La France insoumise (from 2016). While an emerging literature primarily investigated the populist framing of populist radical right parties' climate (sceptic) discourse, the article analyses how a populist radical left party incorporates environmental issues into its agenda and the extent to which environmentalism and populism concretely interweave. Using mixed-methods, we first show that the logics of party competition and the growing salience of environmental issues led La France insoumise to gradually develop an ambitious green agenda. We then show that there is evidence for a populism/environmentalism nexus that could be defined as 'green populism'. La France insoumise's ecosocialist ideology combines to anti-elitism and people-centrism to blame the environmental crisis on the 'oligarchy' and to promote a green transition that would protect the people.

International audience; The Great Recession (2007-2009) has created a breeding ground allowing the emergence of new left-wing movements in Europe, among which are Podemos and La France insoumise (LFI). These two movements adopted a populist strategy, inspired by the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (Gómez-Reino & Llamazares, 2019; Kioupkiolis, 2016). They developed a national-popular narrative, closely associating the category of the “people” to the concept of “homeland”. The aim of this paper is to analyze to what extent the adoption of this narrative represents an ideological and strategic turning point regarding the French and Spanish far-left tradition. This work is the result of several months of qualitative surveys : Participant observation during the electoral campaigns (2015, 2016, 2017, 2019) and interviews (with members and leaders of these movements) were made. Firstly, we analyze the common features of their narratives mainly inspired by the Latin American national- popular experiences of the 2000s. Both movements oppose the “people” to the “oligarchy” and propose a civilian-politic, democratic and progressive definition of the homeland, linked to the defense of public services, social rights, and to the protection of the most destitute citizens facing the neoliberal offensive. Secondly, we situate these discourses in their respective national contexts to determine (1) To what extent the adoption of this narrative represents a break with traditional far-left strategies; (2) How these narratives are shaped according to each national construction. On the one hand, in Spain, the adoption of a national- popular narrative is a key element to understand the break operated by Podemos with the Spanish traditional radical Left characterized by its reject of the adoption of a “patriotic” speech associated to Francoism (Barón & Cuello, 2016; Redondo, 2016). It also represented an answer to the Spanish territorial crisis and as a way to “re-think” the territorial model of Spain by leaning on a “Plurinational hypothesis” (Iglesias, 2016). On the other hand, in France, the strategic use of the “national-popular” narrative by LFI during the 2017 French presidential election falls in line and enhances the Jacobin Republican tradition painting France as “the one and indivisible nation”. This Republican tradition is anchored in the discourse of a part of the French radical left since the 20th century – especially by the French Communist Party – and has been assumed for a long time by the its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

International audience; It is often assumed that conspiratorial thinking shares important affinities with the Manichean views of populism, and its profound distrust of elites and experts. Such connection between conspiracy theory and populism should be explored further, however, in order to shed light on the different ways in which they may be articulated in populist politics. Based on a qualitative case study of the populist radical left and radical right in France, this paper examines the interplay between conspiracy theory and populism during the Covid-19 crisis. We find that both populist parties have channelled the Covid-19 pandemic into their existing ideological framework to mobilize the anxieties and grievances produced by the crisis. However, we see variation in the interpretation of the health crisis through the lenses of the ‘thin’ ideology of populism. More importantly, we find that populist actors may also vary significantly in their use of conspiracy theories, reflecting different ideological legacies and political strategies.