CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

It’s Time for Melenchon,  Not Just for France, for Europe 

Photograph Source: Thomas Delplace – CC0

Jean Luc Melenchon is doing well with French voters, while his chief rival, arch-rightist Marine LePen, is not. White-bread centrist president Emmanuel Macron is term-limited and so, thank God, cannot run again. The path for Melenchon and his party, La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) should be clear; if for any reason it isn’t, that – and it would not be the first time – would be suspicious.

In 2024 Melenchon’s party within the “far-left” New Popular Front won the most seats in parliament, costing Macron his majority. Had he followed precedent and tradition, Macron would have picked a prime minister from the New Popular Front or La France Insoumise. But the French president’s reaction appeared to be, “Horrors! Anything but that!” So per Google, Macron broke with the past. He picked someone deeply unpopular, Michel Barnier, from the right-wing party, Les Republicans. Barnier had to resign in December 2024. Suffice it to say, this move did not endear Macron to the French. In fact, one might conclude that Macron’s allergy to the winning parliamentary party cost him the sliver of popularity he did cling to and indeed, politically backfired.

Melenchon will run for president in 2027 for the fourth time, aiming to address the economic crisis and opposing foreign atrocities like the Gaza genocide. Routinely described in corporate media as “hard left,” Melenchon is an anti-capitalist regularly tarred by publications like Politico (May 6) as divisive and his comments even “deemed by some as antisemitic.” Clearly Politico would prefer the more-likely-to compromise Green or Socialist candidates, but those parties – happily for the ordinary people who support Melenchon – are in disarray, so their followers could well vote La France Insoumise. The May 6 Politico article speaks deprecatingly of his party as “a well-oiled machine........

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