On the third attempt, a third defeat. After his 2012 and 2017 bids, Jean-Luc Mélenchon again missed out on the runoff for France’s presidential election. But this time around, the result had something of the appearance of a victory. While polls right up till election day credited him with 15-17 percent support, the final result was 22 percent. Mélenchon finished 400,000 votes behind Marine Le Pen (23.1 percent) where 600,000 votes had separated them in 2017.

Mélenchon didn’t prevent the expected duel between Emmanuel Macron and Le Pen. Yet there was some cause for satisfaction. His 7,714,000 votes was an increase of 700,000 on 2017 — even though last time he had three contenders on the Left and this time there were five. This was also the highest score for any radical-left candidate in the history of the Fifth Republic, founded in 1958.

As in 2017, Mélenchon came first place among young people. He was backed by one-third of eighteen- to thirty-four-year-olds, but only 9 percent of voters over seventy. It was voters over sixty-five who put Macron into the second round — a candidate who wants to raise the retirement age for everyone under sixty-five.