Less than a year before France goes to the polls, left-wing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has surged in the presidential race, drawing level with former prime minister Édouard Philippe and reaching the second round in three out of five polling scenarios.
A Harris Interactive-Toluna survey conducted for French broadcasters M6 and RTL and published on August 24 puts Mélenchon between 16 and 17 per cent in five different first-round scenarios, an increase from the 12 per cent recorded for him by the same polling institute in April.
The leader of La France Insoumise (France Unbowed, LFI) would qualify for the runoff in three of the five scenarios tested, facing National Rally (Rassemblement National, RN) leader Marine Le Pen.
In one scenario featuring Renaissance figure Gabriel Attal, Philippe, Les Républicains (LR) leader and former interior minister Bruno Retailleau and centre-left politician Raphaël Glucksmann, Mélenchon receives 16 per cent, behind Le Pen but ahead of both Philippe, on 14 per cent, and Attal, on 8 per cent.
Philippe remains one of Mélenchon’s closest competitors. With Attal absent from the race, Mélenchon and Philippe are both projected at 17 per cent.
If Philippe does not run, Mélenchon retains 17 per cent, while Attal reaches 15 per cent.
The only scenario in which Philippe clearly overtakes Mélenchon involves former president François Hollande replacing Glucksmann as the social-democratic candidate. Philippe reaches 19 per cent in that configuration, compared with 17 per cent for Mélenchon, with Hollande on 8 per cent.
The polling boost comes as Mélenchon seeks to project himself as the natural candidate of the French Left ahead of the presidential campaign.
At his rentrée politique (political return), which closed a four-day La France Insoumise summer gathering at Châteauneuf-sur-Isère, near Valence in southeast France, on August 23, he placed environmental policy at the centre of his platform. Organisers put attendance at the closing rally at more than 10,000.
His proposals include an “ecological conscription”, a regional civil-security guard intended to reinforce permanent emergency teams during crises and the creation of “eco-regions” in place of France’s 18 administrative regions.
Mélenchon has also positioned himself against the French Government’s upcoming budget, saying his movement would again vote to censure it and arguing that the proposed measures would worsen France’s economic problems.
His recent interventions have also extended beyond domestic politics. He has repeatedly voiced support for Canada and Quebec in the face of Trump administration trade pressure, including during a visit to Montreal in April 2025.
Additional US duties of 50 per cent on a range of Canadian goods took effect on August 22, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced counter-tariffs due to apply from September 8.
Despite Mélenchon’s rise, the poll indicates that the first round remains dominated by Le Pen. The National Rally leader scores between 35 and 38 per cent across the different scenarios.
Toluna Harris Interactive attributes her continued progress to the confirmation of her embezzlement conviction on appeal on July 7, her announcement of a cassation appeal and her declaration that she is standing in 2027.
The Paris appeal court reduced her ineligibility to 45 months, of which 30 are suspended, leaving a 15-month bar that expired on June 30, 2026 and clearing her to stand.
Le Pen is projected to win every second-round matchup tested by Harris Interactive-Toluna.
She would defeat Mélenchon by 68 per cent to 32 per cent, while beating Attal 57 per cent to 43 per cent. Philippe, previously considered one of the strongest potential candidates against Le Pen, would also lose, albeit by a narrower margin of 55 per cent to 45 per cent.
That is the widest lead the barometer has recorded over Philippe, four points more than in the previous wave.
The poll was conducted online on August 18 and 19 among 1,764 people registered on the electoral roll, drawn from a sample of 2,114 people aged 18 and over. The stated margin of error ranges from 1.4 to 3.1 percentage points.
