His Rivals Wrote Him Off, but Jean-Luc Mélenchon Is Back
Critics of French left-winger Jean-Luc Mélenchon have repeatedly claimed that he’s finished. But as he launches his latest presidential campaign, his popularity among working-class and minority voters is again making him a real contender.
On Sunday, 26,000 people came to see Jean-Luc Mélenchon launch his 2027 presidential bid. While liberal pundits call Mélenchon unelectable, their proposals for another left-wing candidate offer a milquetoast progressivism that inspires few voters. (Stéphane de Sakutin / AFP via Getty Images)
“Ladies and gentlemen, comrades, I give you your candidate for the 2027 presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon!”
This past Sunday, tens of thousands of people filled the streets of Saint-Denis in Paris’s northern suburbs. Despite the sun beating down, they’d come to watch left-winger Mélenchon launch his campaign.
It was a powerful demonstration of the electoral war machine that Mélenchon has been building ever since his first run in 2012. Back then, he’d quit the Parti Socialiste to strike out on the Left. That year, the Parti Socialiste’s François Hollande took the presidency, but his former party colleague Mélenchon won 11 percent of the vote. Today the power balance has changed. In 2022, the Parti Socialiste couldn’t even win 2 percent support.
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