Left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon – will Macron make him prime minister?

Created: 06/11/2022, 19:07

By: Bettina Menzel

French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon ran in the 2012, 2017 and 2022 presidential elections in France.

© picture alliance / Francois Mori / AP / dpa |

François Mori

The left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon is almost level with Macron's party in the parliamentary elections with his alliance "Nupes".

Will the “turtle” end up winning the race?

Paris – You can't blame Jean-Luc Mélenchon for giving up easily.

He has already been a presidential candidate three times and has done better each time: in 2012 he got eleven percent and fourth place.

In 2017 it was almost 20 percent, in 2022 it was 22 percent.

In the meantime, it even looked as if he could move into the runoff against Macron.

With parliamentary elections approaching in France, Mélenchon's La France Insoumis (Indomitable France) coalition and Macron's Ensemble! party are almost level.

But who is Mélenchon and what are his goals?

Jean-Luc Mélenchon's goals: Retirement at 60, minimum wage of 1,500 euros, tax on the wealthy and price blockade

At 70, Jean-Luc Mélenchon can look back on a long career.

Today's left-wing political star was born in Morocco and came to France at the age of eleven.

He was politically active even as a schoolboy and, as a student of literature and philosophy, was involved in Trotskyist organizations.

He served as Minister for Vocational Training for two years.

An anecdote will probably suffice to understand his political views: Fourteen years ago he left the socialist party PS because it was “too right” for him.

In 2017 he founded his own party "La France Insoumis" - his most important topic is the social ills in France.

The left-wing populist is correspondingly popular in the French suburbs.

In La Courneuve, for example, around 44 percent of the residents live below the poverty line.

Here, 64 percent of the 45,000 residents voted for Mélenchon, only 14.7 percent for Emmanuel Macron and 9.4 percent for the right-wing populist Marine Le Pen.

One reason for the left-wing populist's popularity is certainly his political goals: Mélenchon is calling for pensions from the age of 60 (currently 62), raising the minimum wage to 1,500 euros (currently 1,303 euros) and a price freeze for staple foods.

That would cost around 250 billion euros extra, which he wants to finance through a tax on the wealthy.

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General elections in France: can the "turtle" win the race?

Left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon in 2012 at a rally of his then Front de Gauche party.

Today his alliance is called “La France insoumise” – in English: indomitable France.

© picture alliance / dpa |

Guillaume Horcajuelo

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Jean-Luc Mélenchon likes to compare himself to the tortoise from La Fontaine's well-known fable “The Hare and the Tortoise”.

In a race against the actually superior hare, the turtle wins in the end.

"There's no point in running, you have to start on time," said Mélenchon during the election campaign, adding that he had "exhausted a few rabbits." The French media adopted the nickname, which the politician is now using self-deprecatingly.

He is considered an excellent speaker with a sense of humor, but sometimes also cheeky and choleric.

In 2018, for example, he snapped at officials who searched his party headquarters on suspicion of cheating and said: “I am the republic!” – which reminded some of Louis XIV’s “L’État, c’est moi”.

His foreign policy views are EU and NATO skeptical.

During the euro crisis, the left-wing populist accused Germany of imperialism and spoke of an "economic and financial dictate" by the Federal Republic.

But he himself has sometimes had to face criticism, for example because of his uncritical attitude towards South American rulers such as the former Venezuelan head of state Hugo Chavez and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Parliamentary elections in France: Mélenchon wants to become prime minister

In the parliamentary elections in France, Mélenchon now seems to have taken up the cause of becoming head of government – ​​if not head of state.

"I ask the French to elect me prime minister," Mélenchon said shortly after the results of the presidential election were announced.

The constitution does not provide for this, because the head of government is appointed by the president.

That doesn't seem to bother Mélenchon, however.

His left-wing alliance "Nupes" - made up of his own party as well as Socialists, Greens and Communists - is almost on a par with Macron's "Ensemble!" and allies in the latest polls for the general election.

But even if the government alliance were to lose its majority, it is extremely unlikely that Macron would make the aggressive Mélenchon prime minister