Brandished as a scarecrow by the opponents of the New Popular Front, the “Mélenchon Prime Minister” hypothesis has been doomed. Here’s why.
Will Jean-Luc Mélenchon be the Prime Minister of the New Popular Front? This is a question that all the figures of the left have had to answer in recent weeks, in the middle of the legislative election campaign. “I have the impression that it is a comedy of repetition,” Marine Tondelier complained on BFMTV on Wednesday evening. The leader of the ecologists, like her partners, has once again dismissed this hypothesis.
As the 2024 legislative elections draw to a close, it seems more unlikely than ever that Jean-Luc Mélenchon will reach Matignon in the coming weeks. For three reasons.
The New Popular Front no longer seems able to win these legislative elections
By creating a coalition in a few days, the left-wing political forces hoped to win the legislative elections and obtain a majority in the National Assembly. However, the results of the first round have seriously set back this hypothesis: it was indeed the National Rally that came out on top, and that alone seemed able to obtain a majority, according to the polls revealed before the end of the official campaign.
The left-wing parties have understood this well, moreover, since they redefined their priority as of last Sunday: preventing the extreme right from having an absolute majority. Even if it means asking more than a hundred of their candidates to withdraw in favor of opponents from the right and the center. Result: the NFP is presenting 335 candidates in the second round of the legislative elections, to which must be added the 32 deputies elected as of last Sunday. While it is not mathematically impossible that the left will obtain an absolute majority (289 seats), no polling institute projection puts forward this hypothesis. Let us recall, however, that these projections in no way prejudge the results of the legislative elections, known this Sunday evening from 8 p.m.
The fact remains that in the absence of a majority in the Assembly, the left will not be able to form a 100% New Popular Front government. However, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, through Manuel Bompard, has already rejected the prospect of participating in a coalition government with other political tendencies.
The partners of La France insoumise do not want Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Another good reason to exclude the “Mélenchon Prime Minister” hypothesis is the rejection it has provoked among all the partners of La France insoumise within the New Popular Front. “It can’t be Jean-Luc Mélenchon,” hammered the socialist Olivier Faure on Wednesday, June 24 on TF1. “Jean-Luc Mélenchon is not the personality who will create a consensus among us for a peaceful Parliament,” confirmed the communist Fabien Roussel the next day on Franceinfo. Jean-Luc Mélenchon “is not the leader of the New Popular Front and he will not be Prime Minister,” decided the environmentalist Marine Tondelier to AFP a few days earlier.
“In the end, it won’t be Jean-Luc Mélenchon,” Raphaël Glucksmann promised on June 14 on France Inter. Even François Ruffin, invested by LFI, had quickly made the observation, in the columns of the Courrier Picard: “In all honesty, during the first door-to-door, his name comes up, and with concern.” And the deputy of the Somme concluded: “It seems obvious that he will not be Prime Minister.”
Emmanuel Macron will not appoint Jean-Luc Mélenchon as Prime Minister
Last but not least, the final choice of Prime Minister is up to Emmanuel Macron. While it is customary for the President of the Republic to appoint a head of government from the majority group in the National Assembly, nothing obliges him to choose the person designated by the group in question. Furthermore, in a National Assembly made up of several coalitions, none of which may have an absolute majority, the Head of State will be able to interpret the principle of “majority group” quite freely.
If Emmanuel Macron did indeed opt for a left-wing prime minister, he would probably choose a more moderate figure than Jean-Luc Mélenchon: a socialist, a communist or an environmentalist, or even someone who is not affiliated with a major party. He has already assured that he would not govern with La France Insoumise.