Against all odds, a communist soars in French election polls [View all]

[DonViejo]

Last edited Mon Apr 17, 2017, 08:16 PM - Edit history (1)

The headline, above, is the original headline published by the Washington Post. That headline has now been rewritten to read Against all odds, a leftist soars in French election polls

By James McAuley April 16 at 7:24 PM

LILLE, FRANCE — A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

In the latest plot twist in France’s highly contentious presidential election, Mélenchon — an outspoken 65-year-old leftist who often appears on the campaign trail via hologram and who has pitched his proposal to nationalize France’s biggest banks and renegotiate its relationship with the European Union via free Internet games and YouTube videos — is now soaring in the polls. With less than two weeks before the election, his meteoric and unexpected rise is already sending jitters through financial markets and shock waves through an increasingly anxious electorate.

For months, analysts have likened the upcoming French election to “Europe’s Stalingrad,” a crucial turning point that will determine the future of a country and a continent. But while commentators worldwide have focused on the steady rise of the far-right, fiercely anti-immigrant National Front of Marine Le Pen, few have paid any attention to the leftist fringe of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has vaulted into the picture in the past week and who shares with Le Pen the desire to drastically alter France’s relationship with the E.U., the 28-state bloc it once designed.

Mélenchon is running as the candidate of the Unbowed France political movement, in an alliance with the French Communist Party. The latest polls show him narrowly trailing Emmanuel Macron, long seen as the favorite, and Le Pen, expected to qualify for the final round of the two-round vote but to lose to Macron in the end. In the final days of a truly unprecedented campaign, Mélenchon’s unexpected surge is a reminder that radical change is in the air and that its extremist apostles — on the right or the left — may soon hold power.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/against-all-odds-a-communist-soars-in-french-election-polls/2017/04/16/245a5efe-1ef4-11e7-bb59-a74ccaf1d02f_story.html?utm_term=.e258a9c6a8fe&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1