France’s far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon failed to reach the second round of presidential elections on Sunday (10 April), but Europe’s leftists are still encouraged by his close third place. EURACTIV France reports.
Mélenchon came third with 21.95% of the vote, just 1.55% or 421,420 votes shy of Le Pen’s 23.5%. Macron led with 27.34% of the vote. In two weeks, the incumbent Macron and his challenger Le Pen will battle it out in the second round of voting.
“A left-wing force that exceeds 20% is unprecedented,” MEP Leïla Chaibi of Mélenchon’s party La France Insoumise explained after results came in. “I have received many messages this evening from our partners to congratulate us,” she added.
European support
Prior to the vote, after Mélenchon’s popularity had surged in the polls, support poured in from his political family around Europe.
“We send our full support to the candidacy of JLMelenchon. Go France! Yes, we can!” tweeted MEP Idoia Villanueva, a member of Spain’s leftist Podemos party, currently in government alongside the socialist party PSOE.
MP Jörg Schindler from the German radical-left party Die Linke also showed support, “crossing his fingers”, so that the French could choose between the “technocratic” outgoing president and “a clear, social and ecological political change”.
Auch, wenn es knapp nicht für die Stichwahl gereicht hat: Mehr als 20% der Stimmen. #Melenchon hat als Kandidat der radikalen sozial-ökologischen Erneuerung Frankreichs ein starkes Ergebnis erreicht. Gratulation! Darauf wird Frankreichs Linke aufbauen. #electionpresidentielle2022
— Jörg Schindler (@JoergSchindler) April 10, 2022
What now?
Mélenchon was very close to making it to the second round, which has ignited optimism from other European leftists. In the final hours of counting on Sunday evening, the gap between him and Le Pen narrowed from 3.8%, at 8 pm, to 0.8% – but it was not enough.
“A new page of the fight is opening”, Mélenchon began his speech, following the announcement of Sunday’s results. “We will approach it with pride in the work accomplished,” he told the audience.
Mélenchon has now expressly called for “not giving a vote to Le Pen”; a shift from his stance at the 2017 election, during which he refrained from giving voters instructions for the second round.
Martin Schirdewan, German MEP and co-chairman of the European parliamentary group of the left (GUE/NGL), has also called on the French to block the far-right.
French MEP Manon Aubry of La France Insoumise, who co-chairs the left-wing parliamentary group alongside Schirdewan, said Mélenchon has created a “strong dynamic”.
“I know that next week when I come back to the European Parliament, my colleagues will look at me and say ‘thank you, you hold the torch high’,” Aubry said. “France Insoumise will come back to the European Parliament much stronger, but through it, the European left will raise its head,” she added.
According to Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the Spanish left party Podemos, Mélenchon is now “more than ever, a reference for the European left.”
The two organised a joint meeting in Madrid in July 2018 to prepare for the following year’s European Parliament election. With the next EU election set for 2024, La France Insoumise and its European allies are already looking to capitalise on the current momentum.
French left mulls backing Mélenchon's presidential bid
With just four days to go before the first round of the French presidential election, many left-wing voters still wonder whether they should bend some of their beliefs and support far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the only viable candidate on the left likely to be able to hold back the far-right
Syriza eyes progressive government
Greece’s main opposition party, Syriza – of the same EU political family as La France Insoumise – believes that Mélenchon’s performance will give Europe’s progressive forces a boost.
In a statement, it hailed Mélenchon’s performance as “good news” for Europe, saying it is necessary for Le Pen to lose in the second round and “make the far-right vanish in Europe as a whole.”
The Greek leftist party said that together with the far-right, neoliberal policies across Europe should also be defeated.
“The dominance of neoliberalism exacerbates inequality […] feeds nationalist forces,” it said.
Syriza’s statement obviously eyed domestic politics, considering that the party is currently pushing for a progressive coalition with socialists against the ruling right-wing New Democracy Party (EPP).
According to the latest polls, New Democracy is still in the lead, followed by Syriza and socialists (Pasok), however, the scenario of a single-party future government is ruled out.
Stelios Kouloglou, a Syriza MEP, told EURACTIV that if other leftist parties in France had joined forces with La France Insoumise, Mélenchon would have entered the second round.
“Mélenchon’s victory shows that there is an alternative to Macron’s neoliberal policies and Le Pen’s hidden neoliberal agenda,” he said.
A progressive governance model in Europe, and especially in Greece, is absolutely necessary, Kouloglou concluded.
[Edited by Alice Taylor/ Sarantis Michalopoulos/Zoran Radosavljevic/Nathalie Weatherald]
Source: euractiv.com
