Veteran leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon lost out on a place in France’s presidential election run-off, but his 7,714,574 votes have made him the strongest force on the Left. Where those votes go will likely determine whether incumbent Emmanuel Macron or Marine Le Pen becomes president.
In his third shot at the French presidency, 70-year-old Mélenchon got his highest score ever in Sunday’s first round, winning 21.95 percent of the vote, just 1.15 points behind hard right candidate Le Pen.
"Emmanuel Macron holds responsibility for the success of the far right today," Mélenchon’s campaign coordinator Adrien Quatennens told France Inter on Monday. "Now Macron must do what is necessary to win over Mélenchon’s voters."
Sunday’s vote showed three very different sides to the French electorate.
"The France that was protected from the economic crisis voted Macron: the 65s and over, people in cities, well-off households, pensioners, managers," political scientist Erwan Lestrohan told RFI.
"The France fragilised by the crisis voted Marine Le Pen: people aged 25-64, rural communities, small towns, more modest households, employees, working class, the unemployed."
The France that voted for Jean-Luc Melenchon is "the France of the Left", he says. "It’s a young France - 36 percent of 18-24 year olds and 26.4 percent of public sector workers voted for him.
"The Left overall voted Mélenchon, it was quite unexpected," the Odoxa pollster adds. "36 percent of Socialist Party sympathisers voted Jean-Luc Mélénchon and 25 percent of the Greens."
Not all of these voters actively supported the France Unbowed (LFI) candidate, but the vote "indicates there was some tactical voting and a mobilisation of the Left around him".
None for Le Pen
Admitting defeat on Sunday, Mélenchon implored his supporters "not to give a single vote" to Le Pen in the run-off on 24 April.
Given that Macron needs as many Mélenchon supporters as possible to back him, the rejection of Le Pen looked like good news for the president.
But unlike several other losing candidates, Mélenchon stopped short of telling his supporters to back Macron as a way of blocking the far right, leaving the door wide open to abstention.
According to an Ifop poll, as many as 44 percent of Mélenchon voters could abstain in the second round.
Another poll, by Ipsos, put the figure slightly lower.
"34 percent of Jean-Luc Melenchon’s voters are telling us they will vote Macron, 30 percent for Marine Le Pen, and 36 percent will stay at home," Brice Teinturier of Ipsos, told France info on Monday
Macron supporters know he has to win over some of those tempted by the far right or abstention.
"The campaign has to turn to the Left to get those votes, there was too much opening up to the Right", a LREM supporter told RFI on Sunday evening.
Reconquering the Left
Macron rolled out the second round of his campaign on Monday, heading up to the northern Pas-de Calais region, one of the poorest in France, to highlight the social side of his programme.
With the exception of developing renewable energies, the incumbent and the Leftist have little common ground.
Mélenchon is eurosceptic, wants to opt out of NATO’s integrated military command, roll back the age of retirement, introduce a 6th republic with more direct democracy, tax the rich, raise salaries and ban nuclear power.
Macron is pro-Europe, pro-nuclear, pro-business and favours tax cuts. His planned pension reform to raise the legal age of retirement from 62 to 65 has lost him a lot of support on the Left.
In a clear bid to win some of that support back he told locals on Monday the reform was open to discussion. "65 is not a dogma", he said.
While Mélenchon urged his supporters not to back Le Pen, there is more crossover between his and her voters, particularly on the issue of boosting purchasing power and protectionism.
Le Pen has also said she is open to working with some left-wingers.
"Leftists who follow, for example, Jean-Pierre Chévènement, from the sovereigntist left, a left which supports re-industrialisation, the defence of our great industries," could be part of a "government of national unity," she told RTL radio last Thursday.
Low reserves
Macron needs the Mélenchon voters because he has a smaller pool of votes to call on than Le Pen does.
"For the first time Le Pen has a reservoir of votes with [far-right] Eric Zemmour," says political scientist Bruno Cautrès.
Sovereigntist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who won 2 percent of the vote, has also called on his supporters to vote for Le Pen.
Meanwhile "there’s a feeling [Macron's] reservoir of votes has already been used up," Cautrès told RFI, pointing to the poor performance of Republican candidate Valérie Pécresse. With just 4.8 percent – a quarter of her predecessor François Fillon’s score in 2017 – "it showed Macron had already drained away a lot of support from the Republicans".
Last minute turnabout
Given Mélenchon’s popularity with young, environmentally-aware voters, Macron supporters are now emphasising their desire to pursue climate-friendly goals and underlining Le Pen’s plans to get rid of wind turbines and build more nuclear plants.
Along with the U-turn on pensions, they’re hoping to claw back some of the left-wing support they lost since Macron was elected.
Cautrès thinks it may be too late to swing many around.
"This last minute catching up won’t create a strong impetus among left-wing voters who’re in shell-shock over the disastrous results of Anne Hidalgo and Yannick Jadot," he says.
"There is also a question mark over the sincerity of this turn towards the Left which Macron has taken in extremis at the last minute. It will be very complicated."
