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By Serge Duchêne
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Although Jean-Luc Mélenchon was able to boast of exceptional audience figures when he announced his candidacy for the 2027 presidential election on 3 May and even announced “a new media France”on X, his enthusiasm is far from being shared by the French left outside his France Unbowed (FI) party.
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Many have already reminded Jean-Luc Mélenchon of his many “promises” to be the “last candidate.”
“I don’t aspire to repeat the same role over and over again”, he said in 2022. “It’s obvious that this is my last candidacy. It’s even an argument in my favour. I’m the only one not planning a career,” he said the previous year.
“After a magisterial ‘do better’ in 2022, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is finally unable to resist standing in the presidential election for a fourth time,” Romain Eskenazi, spokesperson for the Socialist Party (PS) in the National Assembly, wrote on X.
Jérôme Guedj, the former parliamentary assistant to the leader of the radical left, who has since become a fierce critic, denounced Mélenchon’s candidacy on French national TV TF1 as a “non-event.”
“There’s not just Jean-Luc Mélenchon in politics,” the Socialist MP quipped, himself a candidate for the Élysée, even though “we know that he thinks he’s the man to beat.”
“No one wants Jean-Luc Mélenchon any more, either on the left or in the country,” Pierre Jouvet, Secretary General of the Socialist Party (PS), told French public radio franceinfo on Monday, speaking of an “eternal farewell tour that was supposed to stop and in the end never does.”
He is “the most hated politician in this country,” he said. He is “the best life insurance policy for the far right,” because “he has fractured the country, he has fractured the left, he puts people under permanent stress.”
“There is a legacy that has grown worse with his antisemitic remarks, his communitarianism, his relationship with the police and his insults to political leaders. He is an absolute repellent for certain progressive voters,” said Sacha Houlié, MP for the Socialists and affiliated group.
Is the ‘new’ New Popular Front on track?
Opponents of the LFI leader’s candidacy point to the fact that he has never managed to qualify for the second round. In 2017 (19.58%) and 2022 (21.95%), he fell short by a few hundred thousand votes.
The killer argument for them is that “JLM” is currently the candidate most rejected by the electorate, with 81% of voters who would be dissatisfied in the event of a victory for France Unbowed, according to an April survey of more than 10,000 voters by Ipsos BVA.
Obviously caught off guard by Sunday’s announcement by the strongman of the radical left, the non-Mélenchonist left is now trying to organise its ranks.
Meeting in Paris on Tuesday to mark the 90th anniversary of the Popular Front, supporters of holding primaries among the forces of the left defended “true union” which they see as the only strategy likely to ensure victory in 2027.
The promoters of the “Popular Front 2027” initiative hammered home the need for a primary, despite the fact that it is off to a bad start.
“The question is whether 5 May is a swansong or a wake-up call,” said Clémentine Autain of the left-wing L’Après party. This process, scheduled for 11 October, “has some way to go,” she admitted, “but I can’t see any other democratic solution.”
In front of 1,200 people, according to the organisers, the former Nouveau Front populaire candidate for Matignon, Lucie Castets, assured those present that “this primary is not a pipe dream.” “We are ready, we have the organisation and the means to mobilise millions of voters,” she said.
François Ruffin (Debout!), also a declared candidate who is already claiming 100,000 supporters, also defended “the unity of the left.”
“Today, three quarters of left-wing voters are still saying: we want a common candidacy led by a primary,” he said. “We will need a common force.”
“87% of Socialist voters and 89% of Ecologist voters want the primary,” Ecologist national secretary Marine Tondelier claimed.
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