JUST THREE months ago, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was struggling to be heard. With all eyes fixed on presidential front runners François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, and to a lesser extent on the race for third place between the National Front’s Marine Le Pen and the centrist François Bayrou, the radical left-winger’s press briefings were sparsely attended and his campaign was treated as little more than a marginal curiosity.
With 10 days to go until the first round of voting, however, Mélenchon now has what every candidate craves – momentum – and has forced his rivals to pay attention. In a campaign that has otherwise had little effect on the opinion polls, only the 60-year-old one-time Trotskyist can claim to have made any striking advance, his support having risen from 7 per cent in January to about 14 per cent today. A score of that order would see him challenging for third place.
Standing for the Front de Gauche, a coalition of radical left parties including the Communists, Mélenchon has managed to unite disparate radical factions who would otherwise have garnered only low single-digit scores.
His manifesto calls for a 100 per cent tax rate on income over €360,000 a year, a rise in the monthly minimum wage to €1,700, retirement at 60 for all and a ban on profitable companies laying off workers. Amid intense anger among voters over high unemployment, low purchasing power and executives’ salaries, these ideas have struck a chord with the public.
Mélenchon’s manifesto only partly explains his breakthrough. Much of his attraction lies in his mastery of public oratory and a flair for political theatre. His speeches are peppered with literary and historical allusions – usually to the founding fathers of French socialism or the Revolution. He derided Hollande early in the campaign as a “pedal-boat captain”, suggesting he couldn’t be relied on to steer a firm course in a storm.
“Once again, you will have to be the crater from which the new flame of revolution erupts, lighting the fire of contagion that will become the common cause of the peoples of Europe,” Mélenchon declared in a recent speech in Toulouse.
The Socialist Party’s selection of Hollande, a social democrat, as its candidate – and his adoption of a carefully weighted economic platform built around a balanced budget pledge – left plenty of room to the party’s left for smaller groups to occupy. Given the three other candidates fighting for that space – the Greens’ Eva Joly, Philippe Poutou of the New Anti-Capitalist Party and Nathalie Arthaud of Lutte Ouvrière – have low profiles and have run mixed campaigns, it is Mélenchon who has emerged as de facto leader of the radical left.
His success in that role has allowed him to pull the general debate towards his own ground. Few consider it a coincidence that Hollande announced a 75 per cent tax rate on the super-rich just as Mélenchon hit double-digits in the polls. Even Sarkozy has strayed into his territory, adopting the Front de Gauche’s proposal to impose a levy on tax exiles.
A child of the 1968 uprising, Mélenchon was a Socialist Party senator and served as a minister in Lionel Jospin’s government from 2000 to 2002. He broke with the party leadership (Hollande was general secretary at the time) over the European constitution, which he opposed, and formally severed ties a few years later.
Not everyone on the left is enamoured by the man, however. Many of his erstwhile colleagues see him as a populist demagogue and an opportunist whose manifesto – costed at €100 billion to act upon by one think tank – is untenable. In yesterday’s Nouvel Observateur magazine, philosopher and socialist Michel Onfray was sharply critical of Mélenchon’s worldview, in particular his defence of China’s stance on Tibet and his praise of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. In person, Mélenchon can be by turns charming and bullying – his favourite targets include business leaders and journalists.
The big question is how his rise will affect the outcome of the election. Recent polling suggests that his success is working to Hollande’s advantage by attracting students, the unemployed and working class voters who might otherwise have abstained and may now be persuaded to switch to Hollande if he qualifies for the second round. An added bonus is that some of those working class votes are coming from Marine Le Pen, which reduces the pool of right-wing votes available to Sarkozy in the second round.
But there are dangers for Hollande too. First, his party is haunted by the memory of Jospin’s failure to qualify for the second round in 2002, which was caused partly by the left-wing vote being badly split. A rising Mélenchon helps him, but only to a point. Second, having to cover his left flank carries the risk of alienating the centre ground – an idea Sarkozy presses home by arguing that “Hollande is Mélenchon’s hostage”.
Hollande has insisted he won’t negotiate with Mélenchon after the first round, but has said he will “listen” to what the voters say. The higher Mélenchon’s score, the greater his bargaining power in any discussions over seats in parliament or in cabinet. And the more delicate Hollande’s balancing act will become.
Left-field candidates: Brroadcasting rules help to raise profiles
When Philippe Poutou took his seat in the France 2 TV studio for its flagship current affairs programme on Wednesday night, few French people would have recognised him.
Fifteen minutes later, the unshaven factory worker with the open-necked shirt had caused the studio audience to break the rules by applauding him loudly. Poutou, who is standing for the New Anti-Capitalist Party, admitted being president was “not my dream” but passionately defended his calls for one million new public service jobs, the requisitioning of banks, dismantling of European institutions and removal of border controls.
Like Poutou, Nathalie Arthaud of Lutte Ouvrière has less than 1 per cent support, according to opinion polls, but equal-time broadcasting rules have lifted her profile. Another first-time candidate, Arthaud, a communist, wants to ban companies laying off workers, raise the minimum wage to €1,700 a month and abolish VAT, while making up the shortfall with new taxes on capital. RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC
