SHOTLIST
1. Various of Jean-Luc Mélenchon on 7 July 2024

STORYLINE
After an early two-round election that will culminate this Sunday, the country could be governed by the far right with the 28-year-old Jordan Bardella at the head. However, on the other side of the ideological arc, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is looking to shake up the election.
Four days after Macron called for early elections following poor results in the European parliament, a group of parties came together and formed the New Popular Front, a coalition aimed at resurrecting the Popular Front that came to power in 1936 to curb the far right, and which enacted social policies including 40-hour work weeks and paid leave for workers.
The broad - and potentially rebellious - alliance is led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a three-time presidential candidate (in 2012, 2017 and 2022, improving the results of each election over the previous one) and leader of the France Insoumise party. He has been joined by the Socialists, the Communists, the Greens, and Place Publique, led by the popular Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Raphaël Glucksmann.
And the strategy seems to have worked. In the first round of elections the New Popular Front came second behind the far-right National Rally (RN) and ahead of President Emmanuel Macron's current majority party.
"We are now heading for an exceptionally intense second round. Will it exacerbate the worst of its divisions, those of social inequality, religion, skin colour, social or geographical origin, or will it unite as one people, dedicated to mutual aid and the common good, without preconditions? This is the choice for the second round: the New Popular Front (NPF) or the RN (National Rally)?" said Mélenchon after the results of the first round.
"The New Popular Front is the only alternative," he added.