In a political turnaround, the far left won the second round of legislative elections in France this Sunday (7), with the New Popular Front (NFP) coalition, led by the radical France Insoumise (LFI), led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The 72-year-old leftist is a veteran of French politics and has held several public positions, beginning his career in the 1970s after joining the Socialist Party.
He was Minister of Education in the government of socialist Lionel Jospin in the late 1990s, but left the party in 2008 to found the Left Party, from which he resigned in 2014.
A graduate in philosophy, Mélenchon was a radical Trotskyist in his youth and is considered the most prominent figure on the radical left today. With an anti-capitalist rhetoric, his speeches are marked by combativeness and a strong appeal to social issues.
His political strength began to grow in 2012, after his first attempt to become president of France. He ran for office in two other elections – 2017 and 2022 – but without success, despite gaining increasing support from the French, especially the younger ones, who follow him on social media.
Mélenchon’s main proposals involve taxing the richest and nationalizing various services in France, issues that divide even the left in the current parliament.
In 2017, he ran on a platform that included taxing the wealthy 100% on income above €400,000, reducing the workweek to 32 hours and ending the use of nuclear power in France, which provides nearly 80% of the country’s electricity.
Furthermore, in the 2022 elections, he made promises to get rid of what he calls the “presidential monarchy”, which would grant more powers to the National Assembly.
An admirer of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, Mélenchon also has controversial positions on foreign policy, particularly the war in the Middle East, in which he has been a strong critic of Israel, even being accused of anti-Semitism for public statements about the conflict.
The strongest party in the New Popular Front coalition, France Insoumise (LFI), of which the politician is leader, refused to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization, even after the militia’s massacre of innocent civilians in the territory neighboring the Gaza Strip.
Last year, shortly after the war began, Mélenchon’s LFI compared Israel to Hamas and said the Israeli government “bears as much responsibility for the conflict as the extremists.”
Shortly after the first election results were released, the radical left leader vowed to push for the recognition of a Palestinian state. “We will have a prime minister from the New Popular Front. We will be able to decide many things by decree. At the international level, we will have to agree to recognize the State of Palestine,” he wrote in X on Sunday (7).
The LFI has also received strong criticism for positions that highlighted anti-Semitic stereotypes and for downplaying the threat of anti-Semitism in France.
The French government has reported a surge in attacks against Jews in the country since the war between Israel and Hamas, including more than 360 incidents in the first three months of 2024, a 300% increase compared to 2023. Mélenchon called anti-Semitism in France “residual.”
The victory of the far left has raised concerns among many French Jews, who see the bloc’s rhetoric as a threat.
A survey conducted by American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Europe pointed out that 92% of French Jews believe that France Insumbimissa “contributed” to the rise in anti-Semitism. The Jewish community in France has more than 500,000 people.
The far left obtained 182 deputies and independent candidates ideologically aligned with this front won another 13.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s Juntos bloc, which had the largest bench in the last legislature, although also without an absolute majority, came in second place, with 168 legislators. The National Rally (RN), a right-wing nationalist party led by Marine Le Pen, came in third place, with 143 seats, along with its allies.
The center-right Republicans party won 45 parliamentary seats, and other right-wing independent candidates added 15.
With this political map, the National Assembly will be extremely divided and without an absolute majority of 289 deputies, inaugurating a phase in which France’s governability is undefined.
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