The second round of this Sunday’s French presidential election is a grim prospect, with another runoff between incumbent Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen. The televised debate between the pair on Wednesday night showed that neither has any answers to the cost of living crisis, never mind deeper challenges like climate change.

Yet if this runoff was widely expected, the first round on April 10 also produced a strong result for the radical-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the France Insoumise movement. While mainstays of the corporate center left denounced Mélenchon as “not pro-business” enough and soft on “Islamic communalism,” he secured a massive vote among lower-income voters, young people, and the main cities in general, taking over half of the vote in several suburbs of Paris.

Widely written off even a few months ago, Mélenchon secured 22 percent of the national vote (or 7.7 million votes), beating not only his 2017 result but even his best poll ratings, thus also making his movement a strong pole of attraction for the Left. With parliamentary elections scheduled for June, the Union Populaire that backed his candidacy has now asked other smaller parties to begin discussions on joint lists. Yet differences remain — in particular given France Insoumise’s confrontational approach toward the European Union’s neoliberal treaties and its sharper opposition to rising Islamophobia.