Chronic. If the communist Fabien Roussel had not presented himself in the presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon would have realized the dream of his life: he would have managed, on Sunday April 10, to qualify for the second round and, in doing so, to to dethrone Marine Le Pen at the end of a long political career which will have led her from the extreme left to the Popular Union, via the Socialist Party (PS), then by the Left Party.
The Roussel cactus is no accident. He is the fruit of the conflictual relations that the leader of the “rebellious” maintains with the rest of the left, including with that to which he is supposed to be closest: the communists, who had, at the beginning, bet on him to try to to halt their inexorable decline, felt drawn into a personal adventure that threatened their electoral alliances. They broke up. Accounts always end up being settled.
On the evening of the first round, the only apparent gain for Jean-Luc Mélenchon is to have gone up one step. From fourth place in 2012 and 2017, he rose to third in 2022, thanks to a constant increase in his votes: he had recorded 11.1% of the votes cast ten years ago, had risen to 19, 6% five years ago and this time climbing to nearly 22%. In view of this dynamic, it would almost be enough for him to be patient for 2027 if age helping – 70 years –, the candidate no longer sees himself more as a smuggler than as a conqueror.
The place of third man is not the most comfortable in the French electoral system which, from the presidential to the legislative elections, aims to promote the bipolarization of political life. François Fillon who had occupied it in 2017 has disappeared from radar; François Bayrou, who had risen there in 2007, was only able to accomplish his project by rallying to Emmanuel Macron ten years later. This time, however, Jean-Luc Mélenchon can hope to count much more than all his predecessors.
Disrupted narrative
The first effect of its 22% is indeed to dynamite the symbolic representation of the political recomposition desired by the two finalists. Since 2017, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have agreed that the left-right divide has now been supplanted by the divide between progressives and nationalists, organized around an antagonistic vision of European construction. The Mélenchon dynamic disrupts the narrative: it certainly includes a significant Eurosceptic component, but it is mainly fueled by the refusal of the announced Macron-Le Pen match, ecological concern, very significant among young people and an anti-liberalism that has always been vigorous on the French left.
You have 54.65% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.