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Far-left showman shakes up French presidential election: Poll

French presidential candidate for the far-left coalition La France Insoumise Jean-Luc Melenchon gestures as he speaks during a debate between the eleven candidates for the French presidential election, April 4, 2017, La Plaine-Saint-Denis. (Photo by AFP)

The winner of France's presidential election debate this week was a fast-talking, maverick leftist whose policies would prove just as much a shock to financial markets as those of the more prominent leader of the far right.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, a former Trotskyist who would pull France out of NATO and possibly out of the European Union too, is climbing fastest in the polls with just over two weeks to go before the first round of a closely-fought election.

In a snap poll after Tuesday night's four-hour debate, viewers found Melenchon, 65, the most convincing of the 11 candidates, outshining frontrunners Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist, far right leader Marine Le Pen, and mainstream conservative Francois Fillon.

Melenchon skirmished with Le Pen over religion and called for the debt of troubled euro-zone states to be effectively written off to allow massive new investment to spur growth.

"The debt won't be paid either in France, Spain, Portugal or Greece. The European Central Bank must buy up all the debt ... so that our states can find a way to breathe again," he said.

Melenchon, founder of the "France Unbowed" party, has split the left-wing vote and turned the Socialists into also-rans after five years of unpopular rule by Socialist President Francois Hollande.

A Le Monde/Cevipof poll published on Tuesday put Melenchon's support at 15 percent, up 3.5 points from mid-March.

Ten of eleven candidates for French presidential election pose for a family picture prior to a debate between the eleven candidates for the French presidential election, on April 4, 2017 in La Plaine-Saint-Denis. (Photo by AFP)

He is still well behind Le Pen and Macron, who both have about a quarter of the vote, according to the poll, and are favorites to go through to the May 7 run-off.

But he is breathing down the neck of early frontrunner Fillon, on 17.5 percent, and is well ahead of Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon, on 10 percent.

It is Melenchon's second run at the presidency. He finished fourth with 11 per cent of the vote in 2012.

Kitted out in a revolutionary-style, high-lapelled Mao jacket and with a rapid-fire delivery sprinkled with quotes from Karl Marx and the 19th French writer Victor Hugo, Melenchon is the scourge of established party chiefs.

 

Although Melenchon, who is backed by the French Communist Party, is from the other end of the political spectrum to Le Pen, he advocates policies similar to hers in some areas.

French presidential election candidate for the far-left coalition La France insoumise Jean-Luc Melenchon attends a debate organized by the French private TV channels BFM TV and CNews, between the eleven candidates for the French presidential election, on April 4, 2017 in La Plaine-Saint-Denis. (Photo by AFP)

On Europe, his "Plan A" is to negotiate an overhaul of the EU along "democratic, social and ecological" lines.

In an echo of the process that led to Britons voting to leave the EU last June, Melenchon would put the results of the negotiation to a referendum on whether to stay or leave the EU.

He calls the United States the world's "most dangerous" military power and would pull France out of NATO, impose a 90 percent tax on top earners and rewrite France's constitution.

There are major differences too between Melenchon, who quit the Socialist Party in 2008, and Le Pen.

(Source: Reuters)


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