CA

Part of the Socialist electorate has gone with him, that much is clear. But another part considers that the ‘vote utile’ now is Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He has become the pragmatic choice on the Left, particularly among those who voted for François Hollande but do not identify with the policy that he actually implemented. The other option is Benoît Hamon, who finds himself caught in this bind: on the one hand is Macron, who best represents the perpetuation of the system, and on the other hand is Mélenchon, who offers another way, a left-wing break. Hamon thought that his strength was adopting a position in the center of the left – but in reality what is happening is that he is caught in no-man’s land. There are two major orientations, incarnated respectively by Emmanuel Macron and by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Understanding this from the outset, Mélenchon has waged a campaign to give substance to his position.

One of the reasons for his success, which is also worth noting, is that while before he had a strategy focused on bringing together a coalition of left-wing forces – which is we did with the Front de Gauche, which was based on bringing together Left organisations – and filling in the substance of the word ‘Left’, for this election he has changed strategy. He has abandoned the word ‘Left’, but he has filled in the content of that word with a political proposal. He took account of the fact that waving around the word ‘Left’ had become confusing, because people thought that the ‘Left’ was the government. So it was more effective to work without that word. But he has asserted the values and the proposals of the Left far more effectively than before. Add to that the fact that there has been a crisis of political parties, and that political parties are no longer popular. So he created France Insoumise on the basis of a break with political parties. And that seems to have worked.