by Stefano Montefiori
At the age of 70 he tried for the third time like Marine Le Pen to conquer the Elysée. His hopes were kept alive by the voices of young people: after the first ballot, he urged his constituents not to cast a single vote for Le Pen
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
PARIS At seventy, JeanLuc Mlenchon tried for the third time like Marine Le Pen to conquer the Elysée. He has failed for the third time: but he has never come as close to the vote as he did on Sunday April 10th, never had he received so much approval. His hopes were kept alive by the vote of young people, many of whom supported the radical left project of this former socialist minister, who gave up moderating social democracy. The youngsters rewarded him: Mlenchon first in the U35 class. But that wasn’t enough.
While Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen always led the election campaign, JeanLuc Mlenchon did not give up and, comforted by the polls, which brought him steady growth, tried to win one of the two places for the ballot box from 24 . April. He failed but won over 20 percent of the vote: and urged his constituents not to give even one of these preferences to Marine Le Pen in the second ballot.
Five years ago, his explanation of vote in the second ballot was considered timid, unclear, a rhetorical stunt because he did not clearly position himself between Macron and Le Pen. This time, a few minutes into a moving speech Look at me, I never lowered my arms, I never gave up the fight, you must do the same! the leader of the radical left uttered a phrase that is by no means obvious, but could be decisive: we must not give Marine Le Pen a single vote. was i clear? Because sometimes I say things, but I’m not heard, and then I start all over again: You don’t have to give Marine Le Pen a single vote.
Born in Tangier, Morocco in 1951 to a postal worker father and a teacher, both originally from French Algeria, JeanLuc Mlenchon was a postal worker himself, founder of Tangier’s first radio station, journalist, proofreader and then a French teacher.
The Corriere special on the French presidential elections
After starting out with the Trotskyists in 1977, he became a member of the Socialist Party, where he served in the military for thirty years, with a post as Minister for Vocational Education during the Jospin government from 2000 to 2002.
After Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in the presidential elections against his Socialist party colleague Sgolne Royal, Mlenchon left the PS in 2008, accused of representing the soft gauche, and founded the Parti de Gauche, which became La France Insoumise in 2016. Hoping for the emergence of a new society, less productivist and more environmentally conscious, Mlenchon rails against inequalities and the power of multinational corporations, whose anticapitalist positions are discussed, leading him to support Maduro’s Venezuela but also the oligarchs of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Having in the past advocated the disintegration of Ukraine and resumed Putinian propaganda against neoNazis in Kyiv, Mlenchon distanced himself from Moscow after the February 24 Russian invasion. A protagonist of social media and innovative rallies using holograms, Mlenchon defines himself as a cunning turtle capable of reaching the finish line of the Elysée. He didn’t succeed; I can help Macron stay there.
April 10, 2022 (change April 11, 2022 | 09:05)
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