Six months ago, commentators and parts of the political class were predicting the death of the French Left owing to poor polling, the rise of Eric Zemmour’s candidacy, and division amongst the left-wing groups. These trends have since reversed, and in doing so have greatly improved the prospect of socialist change in the forthcoming presidential election.

The Left were in jeopardy following the serment de Romainville, where hundreds of elected officials pledged to refuse to give the necessary signatures to any politician not endorsed by the Primaire Populaire—an unsuccessful attempt to corral the Left into political primaries to select a single candidate. The Primarie Populaire has since recognised its errors and the jostling has subsided.

The Parti Socialiste candidate Anne Hidalgo has collapsed in the polls at around 2 percent, while the environmentalist Yannick Jadot remains stable at 5 percent. Christiane Taubira, the radical left party candidate and winner of the Primaire Populaire, withdrew from the race as quickly as she appeared after failing to secure enough support to qualify. 

In a February meeting in Tours, the candidate of the People’s Union, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, quoted the French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes: ‘The greatest souls are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. And those who proceed only very slowly can make much greater progress, provided they always follow the right path, than do those who hurry and stray from it’, comparing himself to a ‘wise turtle’ that gradually advances. A steady increase in support followed, with recent polls placing Mélenchon on 17 percent.

It is a strange campaign that the French are experiencing. Macron has refused to participate in debates. So the TV stations are holding small debates between the other candidates while broadcasting video clips from the president.  The rules on the distribution of speaking time according to the size of political groups has meant that smaller candidates or those in outsider positions who barely met the threshold of 500 signatures from elected officials are crowded out and effectively gagged.

We’ve witnessed the rise and fall of Zemmour. This far-right racist candidate is now polling at around 9 percent, far from the 18 percent he reached a few months ago. However, his supporters have not disappeared into the ether—they have swung behind Marine Le Pen as the credible alternative to Macron. And though Zemmour’s campaign has not succeeded, what he has built in recent months may form the foundation for the future of the far-right in France. 

Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of Les Républicains—the historical right wing party that has spent more time in power than any other—is also spiralling in the polls, down to around 9 percent. This is the consequence of Macron’s right-wing policies. Most of the ruling class understand that their interests are safer with a politician that postures as a centrist rather than risking scaring parts of the electorate by backing avowed social conservatives. Macron has indeed managed to win the support of a large majority of the French bourgeoisie—what need do they now have for an old, historical party which has long lost the youth vote and is best known for its corruption scandals?

The Greens and the Socialist Party have also completely crumbled. Polling at 5 percent and 2 percent respectively, they suffer from a lack of social policies or the capacity to represent the Left. Both of their candidates are perceived as being too close to Macron’s policies to represent any kind of meaningful opposition to him. This is not to say that The Greens don’t have any future per say, but in this election they have suffered from the lack of a credible vision that is distinct from that offered by Macron’s En Marche!

Marine Le Pen is polling at around 19 percent to 22 percent. After the initial threat of Zemmour’s surge, her base has solidified and she has emerged as the champion of the far-right, even if it is only for this election. Le Pen has benefitted France’s two-round election system, winning tactical support from voters who wish to see a far-right, security policy driven candidate in the second round of the election.

‘A cause is not made righteous by the amount of support it has, but a righteous cause will eventually win support’.’ declared Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of La France Insoumise or ‘France Unbowed’, to a Paris rally following the first meeting of his campaign’s People’s Union Parliament.  

Launched by the Mélenchonin October 2021, the People’s Union is not just a brand for the campaign but a method of working. Altogether, the goal is quite simple—to build a movement with the political will and organisational strength to break with years of socially and environmentally destructive policies driven by the French president Emmanuel Macron and his government.  Mélenchon’s intent is not to center himself as a candidate but to promote the platform l’Avenir en Commun, ‘A Common Future’. 

This ambitious platform is an extended and fully realised version of his 2017 campaign. With a 158-page manifesto, Mélenchon has presented hundreds of policies he will enact if is elected president. The manifesto has 40 chapters covering wide-ranging issues, from environmental planning to replacing the country’s constitution, as well as LGBTQ rights and gender equality. A dozen programmes were also released detailing the most urgent measures that would be implemented by his government. The comprehensiveness of this political program is even acknowledged by some of Jean-Luc’s biggest opponents—Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, the leader of the largest employer federation in France, said that Mélenchon ‘is ready to govern’.

The platform was written and constructed collectively through the contributions of experts, activists, unionists, and others including those who were not members of the France Unbowed movement. This reflects the broader rationale behind the creation of the People’s Union Parliament, which seeks to build a large and diverse coalition. Members are from the wider Left, bringing together figures from activist organisations, academia, the cultural milieu, and swathes of French civil society. This plurality made it possible for Mélenchon to build a link with wider social movements and increase his support.

This strategy is evident when one looks at Mélenchon’s numerous rallies. For other candidates, these events are constructed around them. One of the most illustrative examples is Emmanuel Macron, who spoke for more than two hours during his one and only rally. By contrast, France Unbowed’s meetings are innovative and immersive, with Mélenchon using holograms to address 12 cities simultaneously, including one hundred thousand attendees at the Place de la République in Paris. These rallies are also much more participatory, featuring contributions from members of the People’s Union talking about their fights, and involvement from cultural figures from outside the world of politics. In Marseille, the actress Sophie de la Rochefoucault made a powerful speech on the importance of culture, linking it to the destruction of public broadcasting by citing the cancellation of the popular French soap Plus Belle la Vie and all the job losses it will entail. 

On the eve of the first round of the presidential election, this approach seems to be working. There have been numerous calls from public figures to vote for Mélenchon and his platform. According to the last one, published and initiated by the renowned feminist Caroline de Haas, he is the only figure capable of defeating the far-right and delivering real change for the country. 

The imperative in the first round of voting in the election must be to avoid a second round runoff between Marine Le Pen and Macron. Preventing such a second round would allow room for democratic debate in France to breathe. There would be no question of calling for a ‘Republican front’, which Emmanuel Macron has used in the past to get himself elected in place of having  majority support for his policies. It would also prevent an election framed around liberticidal laws, or on Islam and immigration, which would damage minority groups and further benefit the Right by preventing discussion on social policies.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon managed to breathe life into the political debate and put popular subjects which speak to the material concerns of the French public on the agenda—the retirement age, wages, health, and the climate to name but a few. If Jean-Luc Mélenchon manages to reach the second round, and to win against Macron, it would be a historical moment. For the first time, a socialist would be president of France and usher in a new era of democracy in the country. A constituent assembly to write the constitution of the 6th Republic would be put in place, and the government would be under the guidance of social movements representing the interests of the working class—implementing a bold economic programme to significantly increase minimum wage from 1269€ to 1400€ per month, reducing the retirement age to 60, and tackling the climate crisis through large scale investment to transition to green and renewable energy.  

However, even if Mélenchon doesn’t make it, the fight won’t be over. Mélenchon and his People’s Union have managed to redefine the French Left as a whole. Parties and personalities that defined themselves as social-democrats’ even though they were just liberals in disguise—like most of the politicians from the French Socialist Party—won’t be able to make a come back for a long time, as France Insoumise has managed to gradually shift the definition of the Left to a broad but powerful ecosocialist movement. And soon after the presidential election will come the Législatives elections in June, in which French citizens elect their MP’s, presenting further opportunity for electoral gains. 

What remains now is to see if the French citizen will go out and vote. Around 30 percent of the French people don’t know who they will vote for, or if they will vote at all. There is still everything to play for, as Mélenchon only needs a few points to beat Le Pen and make it to the second round. We may be witnessing history. And in any case—what choice do we have but to struggle on for the working class, regardless of what happens?