Hasn’t the left already lost the presidential election? Hasn’t she already mourned it? Didn’t its leaders immediately jump over the deadline by planning for the legislative elections or the rest of political life?
We can ask ourselves these seemingly absurd questions, as she is approaching this major election in the worst conditions and does not seem to want to thwart the trajectory of an assured defeat.
A historically low electoral level
Its electoral level is at a historically low level (30% of the votes); the hypothesis of a victory for the extreme right has never been so credible. The left has never had so little influence on a right-wing political agenda. ; However, it is engaged in a dynamic of deadly divisions from which we see no other outcome than a stinging disavowal.
The candidate from La France insoumise (LFI) can certainly qualify for the second round but he seems doomed to lose as he acts as a foil. The rest of the left, which we now qualify as non-Melenchonists (a huge admission of failure to define themselves in the negative), proves incapable of presenting an alternative and structuring a credible offer, on the level of incarnation as well as on that of the proposal.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is running for the fourth time in the presidential election. He was appointed candidate non-democratically, by a mixture of co-optation and plebiscite (citizen “sponsorships”) in a movement where he has practically no responsibility (vice-president of the La Boétie Institute) but which he directs with an iron fist and where criticism is prohibited (under penalty of losing, for the deputies, their nomination in the legislative elections).
He is strongly rejected by 75% of French people and yet says he is mistreated by the media which he constantly insults. He says he is constantly under attack… while he continues to vituperate and conflict. However, he is the best left-wing candidate to hope to reach the second round.
If he qualifies, it is also the assurance of a victory in the second round for the far right. It is difficult to see how he could rally around him and activate a republican reflex which has a good chance of turning against him.
Mélenchon, strong on the weaknesses of his rivals
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is, however, a candidate in many respects, remarkable, far above the others, intellectually and politically. He has developed an overall vision of society, which polarizes debates (the “new France”) and has a complete and updated program.
Its movement, less “gaseous” than in the past, has strengthened. He relies on a young and combative team that he puts forward to give an impression of collegiality and erase its handicaps. Its electorate, rooted in urban graduates, neighborhoods and young people, is a base but also an unbreakable glass ceiling.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon seeks to “refocus” and once again become the teacher who allows him during electoral campaigns to make us forget the swashbuckler of sound and fury. However, its image is permanently damaged.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is strong on the weaknesses of his rivals on the left. It has its own power but it is also the fullness of an emptiness. The Insoumis is once again in a position to capture the useful vote in the left electorate, more united than its leaders, as the rivals of its political family are weak, divided and inconsistent (unless a part of its voters migrate to Édouard Philippe to block the far right in the first round…).
The absence of primary
The non-LFI left is incapable of uniting. A primary could have been a method of bringing it together. This process of bringing together is risky but it would have allowed left-wing voters to decide openly on the selection of a single candidate that the parties themselves are unable to identify.
He could also have created a dynamic, created a team, revealed a leader. The situation is tragicomic: Marine Tondelier, François Ruffin and Clémentine Autain have been candidates for several months in a primary that Olivier Faure is calling for but which the party he leads, the PS, refuses to concede to him.
Nostalgic for their past hegemony, socialist executives find it difficult to imagine that the candidate of the united left would not come from their ranks. There is no other alternative to the primary than a conclave which seems improbable as the parties are incapable of agreeing.
The social democratic left is stuck in candidates which are flourishing without any method other than polls being able to resolve them. Raphaël Glucksmann is taking measured steps towards a candidacy that only the support of the PS can give credibility. But Olivier Faure refuses to concede.
François Hollande is waiting in ambush but can he really make us forget the bad memories of his past five years? The left outside the LFI is inaudible beyond activist circles where it only speaks to itself.
Left-wing voters thus witness, helplessly, the distressing spectacle of political personnel, entangled in the logic of apparatus and ego, over which they have no control.
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