Senior figures in France’s Green party have begun openly discussing abandoning their own presidential candidate and rallying behind left-wing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose fourth bid for the Élysée has gathered pace in the polls.
Les Écologistes, as the Greens are formally known, are torn between an independent run by Marine Tondelier, the party’s national secretary and declared candidate, support for a social-democratic contender and a switch to Mélenchon. Tondelier has been stuck in the low single digits in surveys.
Green MP Sandrine Rousseau said the same day she was pressing for an internal ballot that would end in an alliance and negotiations with Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (France Unbowed, LFI).
The courtship was on show at LFI’s four-day summer gathering near Valence, southeast France, which Cyrielle Chatelain, who chairs the Greens’ group in the National Assembly, attended alongside seven other party officials. Mélenchon devoted his August 23 closing speech almost entirely to the environment, proposing an “ecological conscription” and the replacement of France’s administrative regions with “eco-regions”.
The LFI founder told supporters victory was possible and said any help would be welcome. Dismissing fears that a crowded left-wing field would sink him, he said: “What matters is not the number of candidates, but the number of voters.”
His confidence rests on a Harris Interactive-Toluna survey for broadcasters M6 and RTL published on August 24, which placed him in the run-off against National Rally leader Marine Le Pen in three of five scenarios tested, on 16 to 17 per cent, up from 12 per cent in April. The same poll projected Le Pen would defeat him 68 per cent to 32 per cent in a head-to-head.
The manoeuvring has hardened resistance elsewhere on the left. Raphaël Glucksmann, polling at around 10 per cent, declared his candidacy on TF1’s evening news on August 23, vowing to lift France back up, though he must first win a members-only primary organised by his Place Publique movement and the Socialist Party.
Yannick Jadot, the Greens’ 2022 presidential candidate, rallied to Glucksmann on August 24, arguing that political ecology on its own could not unite the camp and win. He joined the Place Publique leader’s first campaign trip, to La Rochelle, western France, the following day.
Tondelier has continued to plead for unity, telling broadcaster LCI the question was not who lined up behind whom but how the left could build something bigger than any one party.
Mélenchon missed the 2022 run-off by some 420,000 votes, or 1.2 percentage points. The first round of the next presidential election is due on April 18, 2027, with a run-off on May 2.
