PARIS — Enter the bogeyman.
French hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is facing a torrent of criticism following the death of a far-right activist earlier this month in Lyon — and it’s threatening his party’s electoral ambitions.
Mélenchon and his anticapitalist party France Unbowed have stressed that their movement is nonviolent and pushed back against allegations that they were responsible for the fight that ended with the killing of 23-year-old Quentin Deranque.
But the far-right National Rally — and, to a lesser extent, the conservative Les Républicains — have seized on the tragedy to frame Mélenchon as a dangerous demagogue ahead of key municipal elections next month and the presidential race in 2027.
Centrists like French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu are calling on the party to “clean house” and cool their rhetoric.
But stoking the anti-Mélenchon flames benefits the surging National Rally, which has spent years trying to become mainstream and convince voters it should no longer be associated with its Holocaust-downplaying founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Former conservative Prime Minister and likely 2027 presidential candidate Dominique de Villepin said he believes the current “demonization” of Mélenchon’s party “has only one aim: to legitimize the rise to power” of the French far right.
Yet the National Rally’s bid to turn France Unbowed into the country’s new deplorables appears to be working.
A survey conducted after Deranque’s death by independent pollster Odoxa found that just 11 percent of respondents thought Mélenchon reacted appropriately to the incident.
Sixty-one percent of respondents said they are ready to cast a vote in next month’s municipal election to block France Unbowed from coming to power — much like voters used to do with the firewall against the far right.
Bardella’s firewall call
As tensions boiled, National Rally President Jordan Bardella called last week for a cordon sanitaire, or exclusion pact, against France Unbowed.
Then he asked National Rally officials to refrain from joining gatherings to commemorate Deranque, amid concerns that such events could turn violent.
The strategy is clear. Bardella and his allies are attempting to frame their party as the victim of a violent political left that is becoming more radical as the National Rally’s politics are being normalized.
“France Unbowed is moving in the complete opposite direction [to us],” said National Rally MEP Pierre-Romain Thionnet, who is close to Bardella.
The idea that France is gripped by an increasingly dangerous left is clearly taking hold — even though, historically, most political violence in France has been committed by the extreme right.
“We condemn both extreme-left and extreme-right wrongdoing,” said a government official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly on the sensitive topic. “But there has been a complacency toward the far left, a sort of romanticism in France about the radical left that is dangerous.”
Mélenchon, for his part, has long been a controversial figure in French politics, including for his refusal to immediately condemn the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel.
That position crystallized in recent days after he praised the spirit of “resistance” of the Young Guard, a now-disbanded antifascist group that was cofounded by a France Unbowed lawmaker and accused of involvement in the fight; blamed the authorities for the violence; and attacked the National Assembly president for suspending the parliamentary aide who is now under investigation for his role in the affair.
Left gets squeezed
Though Mélenchon ultimately disavowed the violence and said last week that “nothing justifies young Quentin being brought back dead to his parents,” the combative tone of France Unbowed’s response to Deranque’s death — and the National Rally’s ensuing machinations — put other left-wing parties in a tough spot.
Next month’s municipal elections are a two-round affair, and every candidate who scores above 10 percent in the first round advances to the runoff. That means victory often comes down to strategic alliances and convincing a like-minded opponent to swallow their pride and join forces.
But in the wake of Deranque’s death, doing business with France Unbowed could prove risky.
The left-wing Socialist Party said it has broken relations with Mélenchon and his team after the incident, but it will probably need far-left votes to succeed in runoff scenarios against conservative or far-right opponents.
“In cities such as Paris and Marseille, the choice of France Unbowed’s voters could be decisive,” Ipsos pollster Mathieu Gallard told POLITICO. “With the demonization of France Unbowed by the National Rally, the right and some Macron supporters, can the Socialists make alliances with the far left?”
Looking further ahead, one Socialist Party official warned against counting out the savvy political veteran Mélenchon with more than a year to go before the presidential election, in which Bardella or Marine Le Pen will lead the poll-topping National Rally.
“Jean-Luc Mélenchon is very intelligent, very methodical in his political strategy,” the official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said. “He is embracing a strategy that leads him toward the political margins … but he’s also got ambitions to take the leadership of the left.”
Marion Solletty contributed to this report.
Forget Le Pen. French politics has a new archvillain.
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