Three-time French presidential candidate and hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Wednesday said he is "capable" of becoming the country’s next prime minister should a leftwing union win a majority in the snap legislative elections set for June 30 and July 7. His statement was met with a cool response from some coalition allies amid concerns that Mélenchon is too divisive to lead the left.
"I don’t rule myself out but I don’t impose myself," Mélenchon, the founder of the hard-left La France insoumise (France Unbowed or LFI) party, said about the possibility of becoming prime minister during an appearance on France 2 television. France’s president selects its prime minister, but the premier usually hails from the party with a majority in the National Assembly.
His statement comes amid an ongoing whirlwind in French politics. President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and called legislative polls after the far right’s historic success in European elections. Leaders in the Socialist Party, the Greens, the French Communist Party (PCF) and LFI on Monday agreed to form a "Popular Front" and field a single unity candidate in each of France’s 577 constituencies to offer an alternative to the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally or RN) and Macron’s centrist coalition. Leftwing parties on Tuesday resumed negotiations to refine a common platform and divvy up the races. As of Wednesday and into Thursday, the choice of a leader to represent their coalition was still in suspense – although the Socialists, the Greens and the PCF have already declared that it would not be Mélenchon.
The Socialists' leader Olivier Faure on Thursday said to RMC that he "does not rule out" Mélenchon for the premiership if the leftwing union wins the legislative elections but it "will be a collective choice".
"The new coalition will need to choose the person best able to repair … a very fractured country," said Faure. "A profile, not the most divisive, but one that can unite the country."
PCF leader Fabien Roussel called for someone "of the people, unifying, kind, who speaks to everyone" on RTL radio. "I’m one of them, as are others," he said.
And LFI MP Clémentine Autain on Franceinfo espoused a profile "that is not divisive" but "capable of bringing together all of the left and all the Greens" to represent the parties’ coalition, which must "decide on a candidate that creates consensus within this diversity".
New political landscape on the left
LFI bolstered its position as a leading leftwing party in 2022, when Mélenchon won 22 percent in the April presidential election’s first round and declared himself a "candidate" for prime minister in the June legislative elections that followed. Sunday's European elections changed the landscape: LFI’s Manon Aubry won just 9.9 percent of the vote, while the head of the Socialist-oriented list, Raphaël Glucksmann, won 13.8 percent. Glucksmann has never hid his aim to change the balance of power on the left, but he has yet to clearly define his position within the new Popular Front.
"If Jean-Luc Mélenchon was able to take advantage of the electoral dynamics of the 2022 presidential election, this context is no longer relevant today," said Arnaud Mercier, a professor of information and communication sciences at the University of Paris 2-Assas. "It is impossible to reproduce the situation, and it seems that Mélenchon himself does not want to declare himself a candidate for Matignon," the official residence of the prime minister in Paris. Now LFI’s partners in the leftwing union would like to do without him.
Mélenchon, a former Socialist senator who left the party in 2008, has been increasingly criticised for his propensity to act alone, without consultation, and create conflict. From refusing to call for calm during the 2023 riots that followed the police killing of 17-year-old Nahel M. to imposing his strategy of obstruction on pension reform, his popularity has plummeted.
But the major breaking point came on October 7. The former presidential candidate said on X that "the violence unleashed against Israel and Gaza proves only one thing: violence only produces and reproduces itself (…) The solution exists, that of two states, in accordance with UN resolutions". Since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, when some 1,170 people were killed and 250 taken hostage, Mélenchon has been accused of ambiguity on the issue of anti-Semitism, and not for the first time. Furthermore, a perceived lack of empathy for Israeli victims in the LFI’s communiqué caused a rift in the New Ecological and Social Popular Union (NUPES), the former leftwing coalition that emerged in the run-up to the 2022 legislative elections.
"A large number of people on the left, including a part of EELV (the Greens), have turned away from Mélenchon, notably because of feminist issues, since the Quatennens affair [editor’s note: LFI MP Adrien Quatennens was convicted of domestic violence in 2022 and has since rejoined the LFI group in the National Assembly after a four-month suspension], but also questions of anti-Semitism and a reductive definition of the Muslim community" in France, said Virginie Martin, a professor of political science and sociology at KEDGE Business School in Paris. "He is perceived as a deterrent similar to the figure of Marine Le Pen."
More broadly, Mélenchon’s personality and comments have made him a bête noire for many in France, including part of the leftwing electorate. According to an Ifop poll published in mid-May, 76 percent of respondents see him as a liability for LFI, 79 percent for the former NUPES coalition and 90 percent for the left’s return to power. Since the emergence of the new left coalition, many Socialist voters are refusing to vote for a candidate tagged with the LFI label on June 30.
Alternatives to Mélenchon
How then does the Popular Front designate the person likely to become prime minister in the event of a leftwing victory in the legislative elections? Glucksmann suggested former secretary general of the moderate CFDT union, Laurent Berger, for the post.
"That would make it possible to say that the Popular Front is not exclusively an agreement between political parties. It has to be something much broader," said Faure on Tuesday, advocating a government open to civil society.
Greens MP Sandrine Rousseau also mentioned Berger, as well as LFI maverick François Ruffin.
Leftwing activists gathered under the windows of the Greens’ Paris headquarters on Monday chanted "Ruffin prime minister!" to put pressure on the various parties amid negotiations to form a union. The LFI deputy for the Somme department, known for both his presidential ambitions and differences with the leadership of the radical-left movement’s leadership, Ruffin can boast of having proposed the term "Popular Front", a reference to the left coalition that won elections in 1936, as early as Sunday evening. He soon after launched a campaign platform with the same name. But his ambitions could quickly be shattered.
"Jean-Luc Mélenchon and La France insoumise will not allow François Ruffin to take the reins," said Rémi Lefebvre, a political scientist and leftwing specialist. "Mélenchon will still refuse to let Ruffin lead the coalition, because he now sees him as a potential rival for the 2027 presidential election."
Faced with the absence thus far of a unifying figure, the Popular Front could choose not to designate a candidate to lead a government that would emerge from the July 7 second round of the legislative polls.
"The campaign could be run with spokespersons, one for each party, thus favouring collegiality", said Lefebvre. "They must first agree on a platform and the constituencies, which is already very complex, in a week."
This article is an updated translation of the original in French.
