The paradox of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's success4 reading minutes

A look at the news - Jonas Follonier

It's the latest twist in this extraordinary presidential campaign. Beaten by Benoît Hamon a few weeks ago, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is now the third man in the race for the Elysée (from 18% to 20% according to the polls), behind the two favourites Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, who are struggling to keep up with them, and ahead of François Fillon, who stands at around 17%. Although polls - as has been proven in recent times - can be disproved on election day, they nevertheless give good indications of the current trend.

We can understand this trend. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has run a very intelligent campaign, and several factors seem likely to explain his rapid rise. First and foremost, his consistency and precision: he has been saying the same thing since the start of the campaign, and is the first to have presented his program to the French people and put a figure to it. His frankness too: if it proves impossible to get out of the European treaties one way or another, his plan B is clear: France will leave the European Union. On these issues, for example, the Front candidate is more ambiguous.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon also adopts some interesting positions that set him apart from other left-wing candidates: a willingness to engage in dialogue with Vladimir Putin, an ambitious and comprehensive ecological program, and a refusal to continue intervening militarily around the globe. But beyond his proposals, it's his style that is winning over an increasingly broad electorate. Winner of the two major debates, he also caused a sensation during his appearances on L'Emission politique and On n'est pas couché.

But there's a paradox to this media success. Indeed, if Mélenchon has a style that appeals, it's largely for his mastery of French, his vast knowledge of national history, his credentials, his posture as a head of state. In short, the «La France insoumise» candidate appears like a politician of yesteryear. He embodies a V^th Republic that works, the meeting of a man with a people. Mélenchon has a good taste for tradition. His charm comes from the old world, of which the French are nostalgic.

And yet, of all eleven candidates, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is precisely the one whose project proposes an abrupt break with the past, to move towards an absolutely new world. He says it often on television: if elected, he will convene a Constituent Assembly, made up of representatives of civil society, whose mission will be to overhaul the institutional system from top to bottom. Gone will be the overly authoritarian regime of General de Gaule, replaced by the VIth Republic.^th Republic! In his eyes, the Académie française is also outdated; it needs to be extended to the entire French-speaking world. As for the debt that threatens the country's economic survival, «it's all a joke».

It's hard to understand why voters from the hardest left to the most moderate center, led by young people, see Mélenchon as the hero of social networks, the last of the tribunes of yesteryear capable of restoring to France the authority of its former leaders. Do they forget that this Trotskyite is the candidate of uncertainty and forward plunge? That this unconditional admirer of dictators like Fidel Castro wants to isolate his country from the rest of the world, force French citizens living abroad to pay taxes in their country of origin, and turn his back on the economic policies that have proved so successful in Germany and Great Britain in particular? Who can be sure what kind of regime such a man would put in place?

Beyond sensations, it's a question of examining programs. Too few people do. It's exasperating to see all these bobos going for the Melenchonist vote just for the sake of it, and throwing up the Lepenist vote because «fascism is dangerous», when the two extreme candidates agree on almost every point on economic issues.

May the people of France at least vote with reason. This week, everything can still change.

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © ecoledelartoratoire.com