Jean-Luc Antoine Pierre Mélenchon (; born 19 August 1951) is a French left-wing politician who has been the de facto leader of La France Insoumise (LFI) since it was established in 2016. He was the deputy in the National Assembly for the 4th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône from 2017 to 2022 and led the La France Insoumise group in the National Assembly from 2017 to 2021. Mélenchon was previously elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in 2009 and reelected in 2014. He has run for President of France three times, in 2012, 2017 and 2022. In 2026 he announced his candidacy for the 2027 French presidential election.
He started his political career as a member of the Internationalist Communist Organisation. After joining the Socialist Party (PS) in 1976, Mélenchon was successively elected a municipal councillor of Massy (1983) and general councillor of Essonne (1985). In 1986, he entered the Senate, to which he was reelected in 1995 and 2004. He also served as Minister for Vocational Education between 2000 and 2002 under Minister of National Education Jack Lang in the cohabitation government of Lionel Jospin. He was part of the left wing of the PS until the Reims Congress of November 2008, when he left the party to found the Left Party with Marc Dolez, a member of the National Assembly. Mélenchon first served as party president before becoming party co-president alongside Martine Billard, a position he held until 2014. As co-president of the Left Party, he joined the electoral coalition of the Left Front before the 2009 European Parliament election in France; he was elected as a MEP in the South-West France constituency and reelected in 2014. He became the Left Front's candidate in the 2012 French presidential election, in which he came in fourth, receiving 11.1% of the first-round vote.
In February 2016, Mélenchon founded La France Insoumise. He stood as a candidate in the 2017 French presidential election, again coming in fourth, with 19.6% of the first-round vote. He became a member of the National Assembly for LFI following the 2017 French legislative election, receiving 59.9% in the second round in the 4th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône, located in Marseille (France's second-largest city). Mélenchon stood again under the LFI banner in the 2022 French presidential election, coming in third with 21.95% of the vote, just over one point short of qualifying for the second round. After this, he led the newly formed New Ecological and Social People's Union (NUPES) alliance of parties to a second-place performance in the 2022 French legislative election. LFI was confirmed as the largest party of the French left in the 2024 French legislative election, where the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) achieved a plurality of seats and LFI was confirmed as the largest left-wing group in the National Assembly.
Mélenchon is a highly polarizing figure in France. Many observers highlight his oratorical talent and political skills, but also criticize his penchant for provocation and his dubious inflammatory statements.
Biography Early life, education, and early politics (1951–1976) Mélenchon was born in Tangier (Tangier International Zone), Morocco. His father, Georges, was a postmaster of Spanish descent, and his mother, Jeanine Bayona, was a primary school teacher of both Spanish and Sicilian descent. He grew up in Morocco, until his family moved to France in 1962. Mélenchon was then educated at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille, a state secondary school in Rouen, Normandy. He graduated in 1972. With a degree in philosophy from the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon and having gained a CAPES, he became a teacher before entering politics. He was originally a follower of Pierre Lambert and a member of the Trotskyist movement before supporting François Mitterrand and joining the Socialist Party (PS).
Family and private life In 1969, Mélenchon met Bernadette Abriel, two years younger than him, and they became parents of Marlyne, in 1974. Marlyne had various jobs in the public sector.
Since the beginning of the 2010s, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has been in a relationship with Sofia Chikirou, a member of his own party. His relationship with Sofia Chikirou is considered an open secretLaura Motet, Pourquoi la justice enquête sur la députée LFI Sophia Chikirou, 3 October 2023, Le Monde She has been nicknamed "the boss's wife".Sophia Chikirou, la «femme du chef» et ses méthodes violentes, 05.10.2023, Alain Rebetez
Socialist Mitterrandist leader (1976–1986) Mélenchon left Besançon to enter professional life in Lons-le-Saunier (Jura), and joined the PS in September 1976.Lilian Alemagna and Stéphane Alliès, Mélenchon le plébéien, Paris, Robert Laffont, 2012 (), p.55 He was part of the democratic socialist and left-wing of the PS. Mélenchon did not join the French Communist Party (PCF) because of the latter's refusal to condemn the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 to end the Prague Spring, an event that he said had significantly affected him in political terms, even more than the protests of 1968, which occurred when he was still a university student and he became leader of the student movement at the University of Besançon, and was one of the causes of his joining in 1972 the Internationalist Communist Organisation. As a member of the PS, he soon assumed local and departmental responsibilities (deputy section secretary of Montaigu), and developed a federal newspaper that fought for a union between the PS and the PCF. It was at this time that the latter broke the agreements of the union of the left on a joint program of government. He then came to the attention of Claude Germon, mayor of Massy (Essonne) and member of the executive office of the PS responsible for the business section. Without stable work after his application was rejected at the Croix du Jura newspaper,Lilian Alemagna and Stéphane Alliès, Mélenchon le plébéien, Paris, Robert Laffont, 2012 (), p. 63 he was hired by Claude Germon to become his private secretary.Lilian Alemagna and Stéphane Alliès, Mélenchon le plébéien, Paris, Robert Laffont, 2012 (), p.64
Mélenchon became one of the leading Mitterrandist leaders of the Essonne federation, which led him to the position of first secretary of this federation at the Valence Congress in 1981; he remained in this position until 1986. He positioned himself both against the "Second left" of Michel Rocard and the Centre of Socialist Studies, Research, and Education (CERES) of Jean-Pierre Chevènement. He was elected senator during the senatorials of 1986, and again in 1995 and 2004."Mélenchon le plébéien". Review of "Cette toute première biographie, sans concession ni caricature, permet enfin de connaître la vie de ce natif de Tanger, révélé à la politique en Mai 68, dans son lycée de Lons-le-Saunier. Rythmé d'anecdotes savoureuses, truffé de révélations pas toujours tendres, le récit nous emmène à Besançon avec 'Mémé', l'étudiant lambertiste de la très secrète 'Organisation communiste internationale' (OCI), puis avec 'Jean-Louis Mula', journaliste socialiste dans le Jura parti ensuite 'faire de la politique' à Massy et devenir un jeune fidèle de Mitterrand, dont Mélenchon se rêve aujourd'hui en héritier." A supporter of Mitterrand and left-wing reformist socialism, Mélenchon presented two lectures about Mitterrand's presidency, "1981: The Revolution Suspended" and "A Complete Balance Sheet of François Mitterand's presidency". He saw Mitterand's win in 1981 as the end of a political process of which the main accelerator was "the ten million workers on strike" in the protests of 1968. He argued that the reforms introduced by Mitterrand were more wide-ranging than often recognised, citing the nationalisation of dozens of banks electricity companies, engineering companies, and motorways, the doubling of the budget of the Ministry of Culture, and increased taxes for the rich, and against the perceived betrayal on the part of Mitterrand and the other left-wing leaders. According to Mélenchon, the blame for the turn to austerity rest on a lack of political courage, a lack of strategy on the left of the left, and a lack of mass mobilisation.
Socialist Party (1986–2008) He was elected senator in the 1986 French Senate elections.
From the Socialist Left to For the Social Republic (1988-2005) A founder, along with Julien Dray, of the Socialist Left in 1988, he opposed the open-door policy of François Mitterrand's second presidency, targeting Michel Rocard and the "soft left," as well as France's entry into the Gulf War (first Gulf War), against the majority of his party and President Thierry.
At the 1990 Rennes Congress, where no motion reached 30%, the party's left wing was divided into four factions. Mélenchon led his own motion, which obtained 1.35% of the vote. In June 1990, he submitted a bill to the Senate for the creation of a civil partnership contract, a precursor to what would become the Civil Solidarity Pact (PACS) in 1999.
In April 1992, he was defeated in the Massy-Ouest canton, which he had won in 1985: his 38.43% was insufficient compared to the 39.71% of the right-wing candidate, Vincent Delahaye. He attributes his defeat by to Guy Bonneau's (Génération écologie) remaining in the second round.
In 1992, he called for a vote in favour of the Maastricht Treaty, which he considered a "left-wing compromise". In a speech to the Senate, he considers that the single currency is the major instrument that will allow Europe to be "carrier of civilization, culture, networks of solidarity" against the dollar, which.. In this vein, he expressed regret over the Danish vote on the Maastricht Treaty, stating: "As cruel as it may be to hear, nations can be mistaken. Ours has already made a mistake, and we know the price that history has paid for missing the boat."
While continuing to defend the existence of the single currency, he quickly regretted his choice regarding the Maastricht Treaty and, along with the Socialist Left, submitted an amendment, entitled "Turning the page on Maastricht," to a 1996 Socialist Party convention. He later declared that the opponents of this treaty were right and that the stated objective at the time was a "total failure".
A long-standing and stable faction, the Socialist Left presented its own motion at three Socialist Party congresses until its dissolution in 2002. It obtained scores ranging from 7.3% to 13.3% of the votes cast.
Although a Mitterrand supporter, Mélenchon backed Michel Rocard's appointment as First Secretary of the Socialist Party in 1993, which allowed him to gain a leadership position within the party, as he became press secretary: "Rocard, who advocated consensus when he was Prime Minister, no longer speaks of an alliance with centrists but of an axis with socialists, communists, and ecologists. That's the change…".
At the 1997 Brest Congress, Mélenchon ran for First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS). The only opponent to François Hollande, he obtained 8.81% of the vote, a lower score than the Socialist Left motion, and he experienced this defeat as a humiliation. In 2009, he claimed that François Hollande had not kept his word to grant him a score of 15% as per their agreement and indicated that he had told him he would never forgive him.
On April 22 and 23, 1998, he went against the party's position and was the only senator from the Socialist group to vote against the bill integrating the Bank of France into the European System of Central Banks and against the resolution on the transition to the euro. He asserted on this occasion that, faced with transnational capitalism, European economic integration gives the illusion of power, while in fact it is a means of confinement. Following this vote, he was sanctioned, along with five other parliamentarians, by the national bureau of the Socialist Party and received a letter of reprimand from the First Secretary, François Hollande.