“Tonight, @JLMelenchon will finish with almost 22% of the vote. It’s an extraordinary result,” campaign manager Manuel Bompard tweeted. “Unfortunately, that won’t be enough to qualify for the second round. But what pride in all that progress!”
But before, around 11:00 p.m. at the Cirque d’hiver in Paris, the activists and executives, who had until then accepted elimination by insisting on the positive aspect of the big score, tipped over when they saw an estimate bringing the gap with Marine Le Pen at 0.7 points. “What if… what if?” was on everyone’s lips and Manuel Bompard, who didn’t believe it at first, came to explain to a few journalists that he mightn’t now certify 100% that things were settled.
At 8:00 p.m., when the score of their champion was displayed, around 20% of the votes, a shout of joy resounded among the dozens of activists and personalities gathered at the Cirque d’hiver. “We are happy,” immediately let go of an activist, visibly relieved.
After a few minutes, several activists suffered a backlash. Some hugged each other, their eyes filled with tears. Pierre-Dahomey Néhémy, 35, comforted a crying friend. “I was hoping he would be in the second round. Ecology and social justice will not be in the second round of the elections. People are sad,” he told AFP.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in the state of counting, might not gather with the same magnitude as his mentor François Mitterrand who had won on his third try.
Yet the last few weeks, and especially the very last, have seen many supporters, activists and left-wing figures publicly announce that they would vote Jean-Luc Mélenchon in an attempt to eliminate Marine Le Pen.
The march proved to be too high, the candidate of the National Rally having experienced a dynamic similar to the Insoumis, having started from higher up.
The phenomenon of the useful vote played to the full, the other left-wing candidates having been siphoned off, all falling below the 5% mark.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon spoke earlier and in a better mood than in 2017, in front of excited activists. He renewed the same position: a consultation with his 320,000 citizen sponsors online to find out whether to vote Emmanuel Macron or white in the second round. “You must not give a voice to Marine Le Pen”, he repeated several times.
The tribune, who promised before the election that he would not run once more in 2027, said: “A new page in the fight is opening, we will approach it with pride in the work accomplished”. He addressed the young people: “It’s not far. Do better”.
For Simon Persico, political scientist and lecturer at Sciences Po Grenoble, “it is undoubtedly a success, he increased his score when he had lost the Communists”.
Unlikely rebound
Despite the defeat, climbing to third place, far ahead of the rest of the left and right candidates, was not certain given the position which was that of the Insoumis in the middle of the five-year period which is ending.
The “image rupture” documented by all the opinion polls from the searches at the LFI headquarters in October 2018 seemed to threaten the political possibilities of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Disastrous Europeans followed in 2019.
But to “get out of the catacombs”, in his own words, Jean-Luc Mélenchon spoke regarding his experience of presidential campaigns and the methodical organization of his movement. He stayed away from the divisions of the left, of which the “Popular Primary” was one of the most recent engines.
Its troops, already reinforced compared to 2017 with the election of deputies and MEPs, have expanded with the establishment of a “Parliament of the People’s Union”, composed of figures from social movements.
The images of Jean-Luc Mélenchon speaking in front of thousands of people in Paris or Toulouse marked the spirits when the pandemic seemed to have extinguished the great political rallies.
When he spoke on television, the communist Fabien Roussel, who decided to lead an independent campaign and not to ally himself with LFI like the two previous times, was booed by the Insoumis militants. “I don’t agree with that, we are meant to be brought together,” said Aurélie Trouvé, the president of the Parliament of the People’s Union.
In view of the future and in particular the legislative elections of June, “here is the force!”, thundered Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who might try to remain a deputy.
