Kingmaker?
Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the "Third Round" of the French Presidential Elections
This was written on the eve of the French presidential election, which might strike some as a strange time to focus on Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the populist-left candidate that the far-right Marine Le Pen narrowly nosed out of the second round.
Yet he is very much at the epicentre of national attention right now. As are the 22% of French voters that cast their ballots for him in the first round.
So let’s take a closer look.
First question, how will Mélenchon vote in the second round? Voting for Le Pen seems definitely out of the question: the key message he made in his concession speech on April 10th was "not one vote for Marine Le Pen” – in fact, it was so key he repeated it, mantra-like, four times in a row.
His other key message, repeated in every tweet, stump speech and glad-handing appearance since, but never actually said, is not one vote for Macron either.
Unable to hold his nose and vote to stop the extreme right from gaining power in France for the first time since Vichy, Mélenchon is therefore faced with only two options: abstain, or cast a blank ballot. My guess is on the latter. A serious candidate can hardly risk not showing up at the ballot box. Such a gesture would be construed as even more irresponsible than what Prime Minister Jean Castex did in the first round: fly across the country in a private jet to vote in person, instead of just getting someone to cast an absentee ballot. The cost (environmental, not political): the same amount of CO2 the average French person produces in six months.
No, Mélenchon will exercise his legs, and his political franchise, and then, come Monday, go into full campaign trot for the legislative elections in June, which he is calling the “le troisième tour” (“the third round”), and which he is determined to win.
What his followers will do is anyone’s guess. The majority will probably abstain or vote blank; a minority will break rank and vote Le Pen; and another will break rank and vote Macron.
And then they will re-coalesce around their man.
On Tuesday, Mélenchon asked the French to make him Prime Minister by voting for his party, La France Insoumise (“France Unbroken”) in the legislative elections.
When asked if it mattered to him if he served as PM under a President Le Pen or a President Macron, he shrugged and said “non”.
Whether Macron becomes the first President of the Republic to serve a second term since the establishment of the five-year term in 2000, or Le Pen becomes the first dangerously extreme far-right Chief of the French State since Petain (and the first one ever elected), chances are he or she will be forced into some form of cohabitation government come June.
In fact, these are the wishes of two-thirds of the French electorate, who in recent polls have indicated they do not want either candidate to obtain a majority in the National Assembly.
The last time this happened was in 1997, when Jacques Chirac was forced to appoint Lionel Jospin Prime Minister after his left coalition (“La Gauche Plurielle”) won the majority. That configuration, which brought in some interesting social policies, including the 35-hour workweek, lasted till 2002 – the year that Marine Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen squeaked past Jospin into the second round of the Presidential.
Chances of a similar left-wing coalition this time are slim. Mélenchon is the only left-wing politician with any momentum, so therefore the only one who gets to call the shots.
The Mélenchonchites have been courting other radicals, the Communists and the Greens, but they are also insisting that they be "accountable for their numerous attacks on Mélenchon.” As Libé reports, they’re not asking for “an exercise of public flogging”, but "explanations" are "a prerequisite" to any discussion for the legislative elections.
By most reports, they’re also freezing out the socialists – as payback for having been frozen out by the Socialist Party during their majority under Hollande.
Plus ça change…
To get a fuller sense of all of this, have a listen to this week’s Hexagon Podcast with the political scientist Gilles Ivaldi, an expert on French political parties and elections, populism, and the far-right.
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