“Withdrawn but not withdrawn”, he repeats at will. Since the first round of the presidential election and its “Do better! Launched to his flock, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 71, blows hot and cold on his future. “I want to be replaced,” he told the Reporterre site in early September. Before backpedaling on France 5: “I tell anything so that I am left in peace. »
Nevertheless: within LFI, after Mélenchon has already begun. A few days ago, LFI deputy Alexis Corbière explained that a “new stage” was opening after Mélenchon’s declarations which “cause tectonics of the positioning and counter-positioning plates”.
Adrien Quatennens now seeming out of the game, at least five putative leaders could take over. Alexis Corbiere, 54 years old including 25 of companionship with Mélenchon, says he wants to participate in the “debate” which is taking place. His credo: “The fight for the Republic to the end: social and rights. A free electron of the movement appreciated by activists but far from the apparatus, Francois Ruffin also plays its part, not hesitating to criticize the strategy of the candidate Mélenchon. At 46, the deputy of the Somme believes that the left will not win as long as it does not address the rural classes and peripheral France.
Mathilde Panot, the chef’s “darling”
Another follower of the step aside, the deputy Clementine Autain, 49, no longer hides his ambitions. At the end of August, on her blog, the deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis came out of the woods to denounce the “gaseous form” of LFI which makes the movement rest “on a small core of leaders”. And call for more “pluralism” and “territorial anchoring”. “She theorizes, she organizes her networks. She is in the process of freeing herself, ”observes a member of the Nupes.
Figure of the “Mélenchon babies”, Mathilde Panot, 33, the patroness of the LFI deputies in the Assembly endorses the difficult costume of “darling” of the leader who does not stop dislodging the young woman. “Mathilde Panot created the feminine of the word tribune. I would not have done as well as her, ”he confided at the end of August. But one of his rebellious colleagues warns: “A dubbing will not work. »
Finally, there is the man in the shadows, LFI’s “control tower”, Manuel Bompard, 36 years. Nupes negotiator, ex-campaign director of the leader from whom he recovered his Marseille constituency, everyone agrees on his “talent”, a little less on his gifts as a speaker. From his post as an observer, a PS deputy summarizes: “Clearly, there is potential but no one is imposing. »