Far-left Mélenchon could yet prove decisive (and disastrous) for France

Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not like journalists, especially British or American journalists. Interviews with him have a habit of exploding into insults after a few minutes.

All credit then to Leila Abboud, the Paris bureau chief of the FT, who lasted more than three hours with the bad-tempered old fox in an interview published last weekend.

She even managed to make the hard-left veteran appear likeable. Mélenchon, one of the most detested men in French politics, can be likeable, or at least compelling, when he wants to be.

In several ways, Mélenchon, 73, resembles the late, unlamented Jean-Marie Le Pen. He is a great orator; he is funny; he is passionate. He is brilliant, populist politician fighting for a destructive cause.

Here lies a paradox which could decide the fate of France at the Presidential election two years’ from now. Mélenchon is, in two senses, going nowhere. He is unelectable but he will remain, at least until 2027, one of the most decisive figures in French politics.

He has more charisma than most of the other likely contenders of the Left and the Centre. He all but reached the second-round run-off last time. It is not very likely that he will do so in 2027 – but it is not impossible.

The consequences for France if he did so would be catastrophic. His presence in Round Two would ensure that France elected a far-right, anti-European head of state.

Two years from now we will be between the rounds of the French Presidential election. We can be pretty sure (unfortunately) who will occupy one of the two places in Round Two. It will be Marine Le Pen or, if she is still banned from seeking office, it will be her smooth and shallow understudy, Jordan Bardella.

READ MORE: Appeals and rallies: What next for Marine Le Pen and the French far right?

A deep dive opinion poll by Ipsos this week suggested that a run-off between Le Pen/Bardella and a centrist candidate, either Edouard Philippe or Gabriel Attal, would be too close to call.  A run-off between Mélenchon and the Far Right would be a massacre. Almost two thirds of the vote would go to the Rassemblement National.

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In his lunch interview with the FT, Mélenchon gloried in the possibilities of such a confrontation. “Life requires us to make stark choices,” he said. “The bourgeoisie will have their backs to the wall – a fascist or Mélenchon.”

Polls two years before the event may be of limited value but much of the French “bourgeoisie” appears to have made up its mind about this “stark choice”.

They would rather risk a President Le Pen/Bardella than a President Mélenchon. In the Paris Match monthly league table of political popularity last month, Mélenchon came 47th out of the 50 best-known politicians in France with an approval rating of 28 percent.

And yet Mélenchon continues to bestride the Left. If he runs in 2027 (and he will), it will be difficult for left-wing voters to coalesce behind a more consensual candidate. He remains immensely popular with left-leaning young people and in the multi-racial inner suburbs – two of the last remaining bastions of the much-splintered Gauche.

Mélenchon was on his best behaviour in the FT interview partly because he is promoting the English-language version of his book: Now, the People!: Revolution in the 21st Century.

The book bombed in France in 2023. Small wonder. It is an odd blend of dense, academic argument on the nature of revolution through the ages and a one-sided retelling of recent, French political history. “The people” of the title exist mostly in Mélenchon’s imagination.

He is eloquent on the hypocrisies and contradictions of Centrism. He has nothing much to say about the greatest challenge facing the Left in the democratic West – the defection of a large part of the working classes to the Right and Far Right.

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This is one of the main criticisms of Mélenchon within his movement, La France Insoumise (LFI),  or it would be the criticism if criticism was allowed.  Another book published this week – “La Meute” (the pack) by Charlotte Belaïch and Olivier Pérou – describes the sect-like nature of LFI, which has no members in the normal sense and no internal elections.

The book details the purges over the last three years of several senior figures who challenged the Mélenchonist disdain for the white, working classes and rural France.

One of Mélenchon’s main rivals for the Left vote in 2027, the journalist and film-maker François Ruffin, cut his loose ties with the LFI last year for this reason.

Any future for the Left must include “church towers as well as tower blocks”, he said. Concentrating on the middle-class, youth vote and the inner-suburbs, leaving the white, blue-collar vote to Le Pen, is a guarantee of moral and political failure.

Ruffin, witty and warm, may be one of Mélenchon’s main challengers on the Left in 2027. The Socialist Party, marginalised by Macron and Mélenchon since 2017, also hopes its party congress next month will produce a leader capable of restoring its past glories.

None of the contenders – the present first secretary Olivier Faure, the Socialist leader in the National Assembly, Boris Vallaud and the mayor of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol – are likely to set the campaign alight. A much better candidate for a revived Centre-left would be Raphael Glucksmann, who performed so well in the European elections a year ago but he has the handicap of being a Socialist ally and not a Socialist.

Unless some kind of primary can be organised on the Left (very doubtful), it will be the public opinion polls which decide once again where the bulk of the remaining left-wing votes assemble in the final days of the first- round campaign.

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There is a strong chance that the winner of this “opinion poll primary” will, once again, be Mélenchon. Can he reach Round Two? I doubt it but the choices facing floating or undecided voters will be nightmarish next time.

The Far Right appears to be guaranteed to top the poll in Round One. The Left will therefore dispute the other place in the run-off with the Centre or Centre-right.

By preventing a more electable Leftie from emerging,  Mélenchon could help the Macronist centre that he detests so much. To avoid a Hard Left v Far Right populist final many moderate Left votes may emigrate in Round One to the best-placed Centrist – possibly the former PM, Edouard Philippe.

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But what if they don’t?

And what if a crowd of centre and centre-right candidates split the anti-populist vote and Mélenchon reaches the run-off by a few thousand votes?

It is my opinion that, whatever the polls may say, a majority of French people do not want a Far Right, anti-European, pro-Russian President of the Republic.

But one certain way that they would elect one is if the “stark” alternative two years from now is Jean-Luc Mélenchon.