French left looks to UK Labour as a model for booting out Mélenchon

As the traditional left kept losing ground, anti-establishment Mélenchon became unstoppable. The hard leftist, who wants to “disobey” EU treaties and admires former Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, got over 20 percent of votes in the 2022 presidential election (10 times more than the Socialists) and became the líder máximo of the French left, with his party leading the left-wing coalition in the French parliament.

Things started to look slightly brighter for the moderate left this summer, when the Socialists and Glucksmann scored better than Mélenchon’s France Unbowed at the European parliament election.

Agent provocateur

Still, when Macron called for a shock snap election in June, the Socialists and the Greens, too weak to fly on their own in France’s complex, two-round system, joined forces again with Mélenchon. The rejigged alliance pulled a surprise victory, winning the highest number of seats in the National Assembly, France’s lower chamber.

A familiar scenario quickly followed, with Mélenchon pulling inflammatory moves and more moderate allies struggling to contain him and raise to the occasion.

Many within the center left camp think Mélenchon is willingly sabotaging his own camp’s efforts to form a government and betting on Macron throwing in the towel and stepping down.

“The strategy of France Unbowed is to provoke a presidential election while our goal is to be able to govern … there are different strategies,” said Hélène Geoffroy, a heavyweight Socialist mayor and one of the leading figures of the anti-Mélenchon camp within the left.