Five days before the French presidential election's first round, far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is holding the last major meeting of his presidential campaign in Lille, broadcast live in eleven other cities thanks to holograms, a technology he already used in 2017.
La France Insoumise ("France Unbowed" or LFI) leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not believe that the second round runoff will be between the president-candidate and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen, he told Sud Radio on Tuesday morning.
"I think there's a strong probability I'll be there and Mr Macron would do well to ask himself if he's really certain he's going to be there. Look at the graphs," he added.
The candidate is third in the polls at around 15.5 percent, and is completing his marathon of weekly meetings at the Grand Palais in Lille, northern France, which began in January and have drawn thousands of people each time.
This time, he intends to reach even more voters by deploying, as in 2017, his "holograms" in 11 cities. While he will speak in person at the Lille rally, his image will be projected in three dimensions on stages in Le Havre, Vannes, Poitiers, Pau, Narbonne, Albertville, Montluçon, Besançon, Metz, Trappes and Nice.
🔴 ÉVÈNEMENT - Rendez-vous à 19h30 pour notre multi-meeting #MelenchonHologrammes !
— Jean-Luc Mélenchon (@JLMelenchon) April 5, 2022
➡️ À suivre en direct sur ma chaîne #Twitch : https://t.co/y0r5kBTfb9
➡️ Et sur YouTube : https://t.co/zkOAJNJ5um pic.twitter.com/VsF7qdP5nf
On the sidelines of his meeting in Lille, Mélenchon also launched on Instagram and Snapchat an operation #HologramDePoche ('pocket hologram'), a filter that allows him to "teleport" into the phones of users to remind them of the date of the vote, 10 April, and launch a call for electoral mobilisation.
LFI's objective is to impose itself as the only campaign on the left capable of getting its candidate through to the second round, and to embody the so-called "useful vote".
This will attract the wrath of the socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo who accuses her rival of having "fractured" the left and never wanting "to make an alliance".
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is still outdistanced by far-right candidate Marine Le Pen ahead of the first-round vote.
An Ifop poll published on Monday suggested she had climbed to 22 percent, narrowing the gap with Emmanuel Macron to 5.5 points.
(with wires)
