Dilemma för Mélenchons väljare: ”Pest eller kolera”

Jean-Luc Antoine Pierre Mélenchon (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ lyk ɑ̃twan pjɛʁ melɑ̃ʃɔ̃] (listen); born 19 August 1951) is a French politician who presided over the La France Insoumise group in the National Assembly from 2017 to 2021. He has been the member of the National Assembly for the 4th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône since 2017. Mélenchon has run for President of France three times: coming in fourth in 2012 and 2017, and a strong third in the 2022 election where he narrowly missed continuing on to the second round in France's two-round voting system. After joining the Socialist Party in 1976, he was successively elected a municipal councillor of Massy (1983) and general councillor of Essonne (1985). In 1986, he entered the Senate, to which he was reelected in 1995 and 2004. He also served as Minister for Vocational Education between 2000 and 2002, under Minister of National Education Jack Lang, in the cohabitation government of Lionel Jospin. He was part of the radical wing of the Socialist Party until the Reims Congress of 2008, at the outcome of which he left the party to found the Left Party with Marc Dolez, a member of the National Assembly. Mélenchon first served as party president before becoming party co-president alongside Martine Billard, a position he held until 2014. As co-president of the Left Party, he joined the electoral coalition of the Left Front before the 2009 European election; he was elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in the South-West constituency and reelected in 2014. He was the coalition's candidate in the 2012 presidential election, in which he came in fourth, receiving 11.1% of the first-round vote. Mélenchon founded the movement La France Insoumise (LFI, "France Unbowed") in February 2016. He stood as a candidate in the 2017 presidential election "outside the frame of political parties", again coming in fourth, with 19.6% of the first-round vote. He became a member of the National Assembly for La France Insoumise following the 2017 legislative election, receiving 59.9% in the second round in Bouches-du-Rhône's 4th constituency, located in Marseille, the country's second largest city. Mélenchon stood again under the LFI banner in the 2022 presidential election, coming in third with 21.95% of the vote, just over one point short of the second round.