Jean-Luc Melenchon tried to multiply for this end of the campaign. Last Tuesday he spoke to an assembled audience in Lille and, at the same time, he did so through a hologram in eleven other cities. Simultaneous broadcasting, which allowed the candidate to deliver one of the longest speeches of this campaign in front of 20,000 people in cities such as Pau, Besançon, Nice or Le Havre. Melenchon spoke to them about “the big wheel of history and its mechanisms.” We have three days left: we feel our destiny, we can make the most incredible political turnaround.
According to Melenchon, a turnaround that would allow the French to avoid “neoliberal hallucinations” and “economically disrupt this insane system that wants to turn everything into a commodity.” Lily’s rally and her big meeting last week in Toulouse – the “country of the left and the Spanish Republicans” – was the event of the last two major campaigns of the candidate of the left-wing platform France Insumisa. This week he has left behind all his progressive rivals and keeps hoping to sneak into the second round. In January, polls put him side by side with ecologist Yannick Jadot, with 7.6% of the vote target; Now he is given 16.5% compared to 5% of the Green candidate.
Without conceding an ideological line, Melenchon managed to soften his radical image and his irritated character, favorite corners of attacking his rivals in previous election appointments. In 2022, France Insumisa (LFI) was very innovative in its campaign activities, thanks to experiences such as Lille or a large immersive (and olfactory) rally in Nantes. He also introduced a more compelling and sophisticated program that defends concepts such as ecological planning and creolization, a term popular with writer Edward Glisan, who argues that when different cultures coexist in the same area, they ultimately create a new identity.
In addition, he spread his vision for constitutional reform that would lead France to a sixth republic in which power is less vertical and democracy is more participatory. “If today Jean-Luc Melenchon is leading the polls, among the progressive forces, it is because he has been working on his project for several years and knows how to talk about popular ecology and knows how to reach a certain historical depth,” said Lucille Schmid, vice president of the Analytical Center. . Ecological plant And a former Socialist MP in the Paris region.
French leader Insumiza left the Socialist Party (PS) in 2008 after being a member for thirty-two years and being part of Lionel Jospin’s government. After leaving the PS, he founded the Left Party and ran for president for the first time in 2012 as a candidate for the Coalition of Parties, which included the French Communist Party. He then received 11% of the vote. In the run-up to the 2017 presidential election, he changed his strategy with a more transverse movement he called France Insumisa. According to him, the goal was no longer “unification of the left”, but “People’s Federation”. In this election, he increased to 19.58% of the vote.
From his time at PS, Melenchon has made no secret of his adoration for François Mitterrand. In an interview with the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) a few weeks ago, he compared his program L’Avenir GeneralThe Emblematic Program of the French Left in the 1970s. “Joining the formations at the top was a way to unite at the base, but when that union fell to the top, Mitterrand went straight to the base and told them. This is a program. “I use this method today, probably with less talent,” the candidate explained to INA.
In this regard, sociologist and historian Pierre Rosanvalon recently mentioned in an interview Release That references to Latin American left-wing and populist theorists such as Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, who were still common in 2017, have now disappeared. “Today Melenchon almost restores accents and posture Mitterrands. “The image of a Republican ‘father of the country’ has been created with the notes of Victor Hugo, which forgets his most controversial geopolitical positions,” Rosanvalon said, referring to the “non-aligned” position defended by Melenchon. Invasion from Ukraine.
Experts point to two fundamental factors that can help him overcome what he calls a “mouse hole” that allows him to overcome Marine Le Pen (23% in opinion polls today): mobilizing a restrained electorate and voting useful. Progressive. It is suggested that abstentions in this election may exceed 20% and a large proportion of this percentage will be young voters, one of the groups where Melenchon achieves the best results. On the other hand, if the gap between Le Pen and the LFI candidate in the polls is narrow, it will help mobilize votes from the left-wing electorate, which prefers an “effective vote” to avoid a new macro. Duel – Lepen.
Former Socialist Minister Christiane Tubira said this Friday he would vote for Melenchon. “The coming to power of the far right is a risk that we will not take. From the very first round I choose to block it. The left-wing candidate who has the opportunity to do so today is Jean-Luc Melenchon. You will have my vote on Sunday. ” However, the rejection of the vote will play against the rejection it provokes among environmentalists and socialists: According to the IPSOS barometer, voters Yannick Jadot and Anne Hidalgo have a better image of the current president than Jean-Luc Melenchon. . In addition, if in 2017 the attacks of opponents came from both the left and the right, five years later it was his progressive rivals who criticized him the most.
Among the reasons for this refusal are some past statements (he came to characterize Socialist Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve as a “murderer”) or episodes such as a police search of LFI’s headquarters in 2018, in particular, a sequence that was repeated. On TV and on social networks, in which one of the officials shouted “I am the Republic”. However, in this campaign, Melenchon managed to reverse the incident and ironically reinvent it in several videos for his social media strategy, where he is one of the most active candidates and one of the most successful.
Source: El Diario
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
