He strongly believed in surprise. “This presidential election, I feel good about it”he prophesied in the columns of the Sunday newspaper (article for subscribers), half-March. Jean-Luc Mélenchon saw his flair thwarted, Sunday April 10: the candidate of La France insoumise did not qualify for the second round of voting. He won 21.95% of the vote, behind Emmanuel Macron (27.84%) and Marine Le Pen (23.15%) according to the final results provided at midday Monday by the Ministry of the Interior. “The younger ones will say to me: ‘We haven’t got there yet!’ It’s not far, huh! Do better, thank you”he launched to his supporters after this defeat.
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The radical left tribune’s third attempt therefore proved to be as unsuccessful as the first two, in 2012 and 2017. Did he miss a few weeks to grab the few points necessary for qualification in the second round? This year, Jean-Luc Mélenchon portrayed himself as “sagacious turtle”able to catch up with all the political hares of this campaign.
Yet it is he who left the earliest. He made his candidacy official on November 8, 2020, a year and a half before the election. His roadmap is known, printed in all the heads of his political movement. First, we must continue the frontal opposition to Emmanuel Macron in the parliamentary ranks of the opposition. At the Palais-Bourbon, led by its leader, the La France insoumise group is one of those who have brought the most contradiction to a majority accused of being made up of “booty deputies”.
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The other stages of the rocket must assemble as the presidential election approaches. “We had imagined sequences”says a campaign executive at the end of February. “Until the end of January, the picture had to settle with the discovery of the different candidacies. The challenge for us was to appear at the end of this sequence at the head of the left. The primary on the left delayed it a bit.”
At the beginning of December, Jean-Luc Mélenchon refuses from the outset to participate in the Popular Primary (which he sharply criticizes), which designates Christiane Taubira. This will decide to throw in the towel at the beginning of March and the organizers of the Popular Primary will end up supporting Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
At the start of the year, neck and neck with Yannick Jadot in the polls, the MP for Bouches-du-Rhône continued his campaign with, as in 2017, the desire to innovate to make an impression. An immersive and olfactory meeting is being held in Nantes on January 16. The event speaks. The candidate Mélenchon returns to the center of the game on the left.
“We then thought of a big media coverage at the end of January, beginning of February, on the major channels to install the candidacy.”
A framework of La France insoumiseat franceinfo
Slowly but surely the “sagacious turtle” is widening the gap with its main rivals on the left to get closer to the front runners in this election. “The last sequence was to install the idea that we could win and that we had to regroup behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon”, extends the LFI frame. Over the weeks, the little music of the second round and the “effective vote” settles in, like an air of deja vu. Is it the same campaign as in 2017 being replayed? The same “march for the Sixth Republic”, on March 20, a new meeting in several cities in France thanks to holograms, on April 5… Campaign meetings always see the flags crossed out with the essential “phi” symbol being waved. of La France insoumise, while the candidate defends point by point the measures of the Common Future, the almost unchanged program of the candidate.
But Jean-Luc Mélenchon knows it: to finally qualify, he must seduce some of those who did not support him in 2017, especially on the left. A half-successful bet: socialist Anne Hidalgo (1.75%), ecologist Yannick Jadot (4.63%) and communist Fabien Roussel (2.28%) are rolled in the ballot box, but not enough to allow the candidate of La France insoumise to qualify.
The movement also targets people tempted to abstain and the undecided. “If you go for three points on the side of the rest of the left and three points on the side of those who had not planned to vote, it starts to take shape”insisted Manuel Bompard, campaign director, in mid-March.
The calculations were more or less the same in 2017, when Jean-Luc Mélenchon finished fourth, far ahead of the socialist Benoît Hamon. To ensure a good result at the end of the operation, the movement expands and strengthens. The Popular Union and its Parliament, a kind of airlock to support the candidate without being a member of La France insoumise, are launched. Filled with intellectuals, academics and artists, the structure is “first and foremost a display logic”analyzes political scientist Manuel Cervera-Marzal, a specialist in the movement. To crisscross France and offer dozens of public meetings each week, activists were able to use Popular Action, a home-made social network for electoral mobilization.
All the stages of the Mélenchon rocket are in place. In March, the executives of La France insoumise are smiling: the take-off is gradual, but visible in the curves of the polls and in the growing crowds at public meetings. “We entered the storytelling of the second round, it was not won”confides then, relieved, the deputy Clémentine Autain.
However, in the last days of the campaign, while the mobilization redoubled in intensity, Marine Le Pen was the one who benefited from the best campaign dynamics. The second round is gradually moving away for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, left behind in this race which he thought would end up winning, with wear and tear, with a militant machine more oiled than ever. Sunday, the evening of his defeat, the leader of La France insoumise repeated that it was not necessary “not give a single voice to Madame Le Pen”.
A hazy future is now emerging for La France insoumise, a movement led by a charismatic leader, himself supported by lieutenants more than successors. Will Jean-Luc Mélenchon definitely hand over to his colleagues in the National Assembly? The members of the parliamentary group, such as Adrien Quatennens, Clémentine Autain or Mathilde Panot, are now facing the legislative elections of June 12 and 19. Their re-election would allow them to continue to carry the voice of a radical left opposition, while positioning themselves for the future.
“Some in the party probably have ulterior motives, it’s humanrecognizes a deputy. Everyone’s intelligence will be to get behind the best placed. We don’t see it as a cause for concern, but simply as a new, different situation.” The after-Mélenchon is open.