After an almost perfect performance in the 2017 presidential election, today disappointments are piling up for Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise (LFI) movement. Although some of LFI’s setbacks can be attributed to external factors, its electoral collapse — from 19.6 percent in the first round of the 2017 presidential contest to 6.3 percent in this May’s European elections — above all owes to its significant strategic disorientation.

Already in 2017, it was clear that LFI faced two major issues if it wanted to expand its electorate to embrace both those voters who saw Emmanuel Macron as a force for disrupting existing elites, and the millions of blue-collar voters who were tempted to back Marine Le Pen.

First was the need to build credibility, so that Mélenchon would not be perceived as a “leap into the unknown.” After all, no one wants to stake their future on a poker move. In a situation where neoliberalism generates so many uncertainties and such great anxiety, the mass of French voters want certainty rather than mere adventures.