Three weeks before France’s presidential election, far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Sunday rallied tens of thousands of supporters on the streets of Paris, framing himself as the anti-Emmanuel Macron candidate by vowing to lower the retirement age, raise the minimum wage and freeze food and fuel prices.
Polling in third or fourth place in the presidential vote, Mélenchon – the head of La France Insoumise (France unbowed, or LFI) party, who has been called “Mélen-show” for his crowd-attracting rhetoric – rallied at the Place de la République in central Paris to unite left-leaning supporters after a series of stumbles by French Socialists in recent years.
