He fought France's far right for half a century. Now Mélenchon's presidential bid may hand it power

He fought France's far right for half a century. Now Mélenchon's presidential bid may hand it power Jean-Luc Mélenchon is 75 and he's betting his last shot at France’s presidency on a generation young enough to be his grandchildren November 9, 2026, AM Share Follow ABC News on Google LE BOURGET, France -- Young supporters wore his name on their backs like a soccer star’s, above the number 27. They sang about brass bands and revolution. Many had spent the fall protesting or blockading their schools. Then in walked Jean-Luc Mélenchon: 75 years old, on his fourth presidential run and old enough to be their grandfather. “I have only one sensible thing to propose,” he told 20,000 supporters in a vast hall north of Paris on Saturday. “Everything must change.” The septuagenarian may never get another chance. Three presidential bids have ended short of the runoff. In 2022, just 421,308 votes kept him out. Now, riding a surge in support, he is eyeing a winner-take-all showdown with far-right front-runner Marine Le Pen. The bespectacled, booming and seemingly tireless leftist wants more than the presidency. He wants to rewrite the rules of the French republic — invoking the unfinished promise of the Revolution of 1789. A place in the May 2 runoff could prove a cruel prize. If Le Pen beats him, the anti-capitalist who has spent half a century fighting the far right could help give it what it has never won: the Elysee Palace — and command of France’s nuclear arsenal. Victory could send shock waves across the Atlantic. Trump would still be in the White House. Russia is waging war in Ukraine. Yet Mélenchon wants to pull the EU’s only nuclear-armed power out of NATO, starting with its military command. His debt plans could also put France on a collision course with Europe’s central bank, rattling markets. His detractors see that as the greater danger. They accuse him of stoking unrest and antisemitism, scorning the police and the press, and going soft on Moscow — charges he rejects. Born in Tangier, Morocco, in 1951, the showman was a Trotskyist student, then a Socialist for three decades, rising to senator and junior minister. In 2008, he walked out to build his own movement. Even his rallies have a name: the “Mélenshow.” On Saturday, cameras swept over the crowd on cables while a film followed a woman through life’s struggles. One by one, his lieutenants stepped forward with solutions.