It was founded in November 2011 as a public fraction of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), by the main animators of the former "B" position, which represented 40% of the internal votes in July 2011.
In the 2012 presidential election, some members and local groups of GA anticipated the decision to leave the NPA by campaigning for the Left Front's Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
In areas where the Left Front organises public activities, such as the holding of Citizens' Assemblies, local GA groups play an active part in promoting them; in others, where the Left Front exists mainly as an electoral cartel, the GA sees its role as helping to transform it into a permanent, interventionist organisation with a mass base.
A group of six member-organisations of the Left Front (Gauche Anticapitaliste, Convergences et Alternative, Gauche Unitaire, Fédération pour une Alternative Sociale et Ecologique, Les Alternatifs, République et Socialisme) publish a monthly newsletter, Trait d'Union, and will hold a national meeting on June 15, 2013, with a view to an eventual merger.
Following the national launch of a new movement, Ensemble - Mouvement pour une Alternative de Gauche, Ecologique et Solidaires, at a meeting held in Saint-Denis in January–February 2015, GA decided to dissolve.