Since the outbreak of high school blockades and students protests in French Guiana and Mayotte this September, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, La France Insoumise, has continued to rise in the polls. After a rally in Clermont-Ferrand last Sunday, filling the city’s biggest arena — the third-largest in France — Mélenchon was for the first time projected to make it to the runoff of the 2027 presidential election, in all possible scenarios lining up different candidates.

Marine Le Pen, projected to win 35 percent of the vote in the first round, will almost certainly be his opponent in the final showdown for power. As the movement has yet to reach its peak, these figures could still radically change. On Tuesday, 480,000 people protested across France. With over a million people having already taken to streets in a mere three days of strikes, May ’68 has become a recurring reference by the press and protesters alike. As calls for a convergence between the “yellow vests” (gilets jaunes) and the student movement multiply, this Saturday will see one of the most impressive social movements in France gain further momentum. The Left is now significantly better organized than in successive recent waves of protest.

It is quite possible that Mélenchon could become president next year on the wave of this social movement. In anglophone media, some are quick to sound the alarm about the dangers this involves, revealing their blatant disconnect from the material conditions not only of students but from most working people in France and their disregard for the frustrations with a centralized, top-down political system.