Foreign Policy: Who Is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the Man Now Surging in French Polls?

Our deputy director Martin Michelot talked to Foreign Policy about who the new political star, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of the French presidential elections is.

Our deputy director Martin Michelot talked to Foreign Policy about who the new political star, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of the French presidential elections is.

Mélenchon, age 65, is seen as a survivor of the “true spirit of socialism” by some and “the last Communist dinosaur of France” by others.

Michelot thinks that Mélenchon mania is sweeping France now in part because the charismatic speaker shined at the debates where he openly told Le Pen what many wanted to hear — “that she has no business being here, that’s she’s scaring people unnecessarily” and that “she’s a corrupt politician who’s part of the system.”

The whole article is available on Foreign Policy's website here. 

Martin Michelot
Senior Associate Research Fellow

Expertise: NATO and transatlantic security, European foreign policy and defense, French politics, elections and society, Visegrad Four and Central Europe, EU institutional issues