It is a duel at loggerheads. The one that opposes the leader of the Insoumis, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the communist candidate Fabien Roussel. The two candidates go blow for blow, because the stake is important: the qualification for the second round of the presidential election.
Indeed, if we look at the latest delivery of our “rolling” survey from the Ipsos institute, we see that Jean-Luc Mélenchon ranks third, with 12% of voting intention. Far, very far from Emmanuel Macron, 31%, but only 3 and a half points from second place, occupied by Marine Le Pen, with 15.5%. And 3.5% is precisely the voting intention attributed to Fabien Roussel.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in slow but steady progress in the polls, therefore continues to appeal to what he calls the “useful vote” on the left. He recalls that in 2017, as in 2012, the PCF supported him. And he tries to repaint Fabien Roussel as a divider.
In terms of electoral rallying, one plus one does not always make two. It can do a lot less. And the examples are legion. In 2017, the rallying of the ecologist Yannick Jadot to Benoit Hamon had not prevented the socialist from diving. Especially since in the present case, between Mélenchon and Roussel, an ideological chasm has widened over the months on many subjects.
Nuclear power, Roussel is for it, Mélenchon wants to get out of it; security, which Roussel makes a priority when Mélenchon criticizes police violence; the red blue-white flag waved by Roussel while Mélenchon develops his concept of “creolization”; or even secularism, a totem for the communist candidate while the Insoumis moves away from it to satisfy community demands.
We can almost speak of “two irreconcilable lefts”, according to the established formula: one republican and universalist, the other more ecological, movementist, sometimes of indigenous inspiration.
In the polls, there is not really a communicating vessel between the two. Mélenchon progresses without Roussel retreating, and the communist had not broken through to the detriment of the Insoumis. Two rivals who still share a common goal: to bring back to the polls abstainers who have not voted for a long time. A rather young electorate from the suburbs for Mélenchon, from the working classes of peripheral France for Roussel.