Jean-Luc Mélenchon Announces His Presidential Campaign

This is Mélenchon’s third time running for president. (Wikimedia Commons)

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the left La France Insoumise (LFI) party, announced that he will run for the presidency in France’s 2022 elections.

Mélenchon, currently a deputy in the National Assembly, confirmed his candidacy on November 8, provided that 150,000 people sign a petition in support of his campaign. Such a petition is not required in France, though Mélenchon stated that, as president, he would like it to become law. As of November 19, more than 175,000 people have signed.

Mélenchon’s platform includes eradicating poverty and creating a new constitution, ending the fifth republic established under Charles de Gaulle in 1958. He said, “We have the means to innovate, to do things differently … to abolish the presidential monarchy.” In lieu of the current system of government, Mélenchon seeks to implement a proportional parliamentary regime.

The slogan of his campaign, “We are for!” reflects Mélenchon’s view that French people have, in the past, voted for “the least worst.” Mélenchon told the Guardian, “I do not wish to see this country once again elect a majority based [upon] being against something… voting for Monsieur Macron against Madame Le Pen,” referring to the 2017 election. He added, “It’s time that the French are offered a real choice of something they want.”

Still, Mélechon could be considered a controversial candidate. In December 2019, a French court sentenced Mélenchon to a three-month long suspended prison term, as well as an 8,000-euro fine, on a count of intimidation. In October 2018, Mélenchon shouted “I am the Republic!” at a police officer, then tried to break into his party’s headquarters along with some colleagues. At the time, police were investigating the LFI party for alleged misuse of EU funds. 

Some questioned the timing of Mélechon’s announcement. According to Le Monde, Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the French Socialist Party (PS), asked, “In the middle of a health, economic, [and] social crisis, with terrorism at its degree of maximum alert… is this the right moment?”

The 2022 run is Mélenchon’s third campaign for the presidency. He ran in 2012 and 2017, placing fourth both times with 11.1 percent and 19.6 percent of the vote, respectively. Polls currently indicate a likely run-off between French President Emmanuel Macron (a centrist) and far-right Marine Le Pen, in what would be a repeat of the 2017 election.