Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Front de Gauche staged a big march this afternoon, from Place de la Nation to the Place de la Bastille, culminating in an address by Mélenchon to the masses in front of the Bastille Opera. The event was a huge success. There were several tens of thousands, considerably more than the 30,000 that had been predicted. It was the biggest march in France of the peuple de gauche not directly organized by trade unions in a very long time, with legions of aging PCF militants, probably every last member of Mélenchon’s own Parti de Gauche, and activists from other sundry hard left associations and groupings. People of all ages. The other campaigns were certainly following the event very closely, particularly Hollande’s—which will be concerned by its success, as it wants as many of these folks as possible to vote for him in round one—and Sarkozy’s, which will be pleased by the success, as they hope Mélenchon will create problems for Hollande. Here are some of the photos I took. (N.B. I attended as an interested spectator. I am not a sympathizer of J-L Mélenchon or the French hard left, and definitely not of the Communist party. Politically speaking, this is not my cup of tea, even if I am not unsympathetic to some of the discourse and positions on given issues.)
Along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, near Ledru Rollin, around 4:30 PM.
As it happens, today is the anniversary of the beginning of the Paris Commune in 1871, an iconic event in the imaginaire of the French left, along with the storming of the Bastille in 1789. And the Faubourg Saint-Antoine was the heart of revolutionary Paris and the sans culottes in the 1792-94 years. Lots of symbolism here.
Sharon from Milwaukee sees Communists for the very first time.
Demanding the regularization of sans papiers, i.e. legalizing undocumented immigrants. Mélenchon supports it. So do I.
Mélenchon speaks, toward 5:10 PM. Impossible to get near the stage, or to even move.
The speech wasn’t that long, around half an hour. He’s a good orator. The rhetoric was solidly républicain and gauchiste. Mainly boilerplate. Biggest applause lines: attacking le grand capital.
I only saw one small hammer-and-sickle, on a homemade sign. Communists ain’t what they used to be.
Singing L’Internationale. It’s stirring. Has to be sung in French, BTW. Doesn’t work in English.
Singing La Marseillaise, the greatest national anthem in the world.
Arun with a View 
I did not attend. I live in Marseille. I watched on LCP. I was really moved by parts of what he said. He touched my fibre républicaine and pride in french social history. I recently read Michel Onfray’s book L’ordre libertaire, on one page (p. 375) he sums up all the social measures taken by the Communards during the 10 weeks before they were crushed. I strongly recommend reading that page. That was the true “Cri du Peuple”. It is also well worth reading Jules Valles these days. “L’insurgé” was one of my favorite books when I was in my late teens. It influenced me more than Marx, Sartre or Camus. If there ever was some kind of french revolutionnary genius speaking to all of mankind, it was alive then. I am no fan of Melenchon per se, but as Regis Debray in his recent short pamphlet ” Rêverie de gauche” I am “éffondré” when I listen to Hollande and the likes. Well handled professional political marketing and communication. But “Left light” is no more “it” than Coke light. What is left ? Can you imagine Hollande speaking about Vallès and Louise Michel ? The archaïc side of Melenchon stirrs a profound nostalgia of our “revolutionnary” past. He was gaullien in the stance of his speech. I don’t follow him on many grounds but I agree with him, this election is a shame, the candidates are des “minus” compared to the challenge of the time. One is some sort of “marin d’eau douce” and the other one is riding a horse on the merry go round of the Tuileries, dreaming of Napoleon III, I suppose.
@Massilian: Your sentiments are manifestly widespread on the left. They were indeed echoed yesterday by family and friends who attended the march, who were moved by JLM’s words. His historical references – which drove the speech – font vibrer la gauche française. JLM hit the politico-emotional G-spot of a lot of people. I know French history well – I teach the subject, après tout -, am French by adoption, and on the (moderate) left, but evocations of the Paris Commune, Louise Michel, etc don’t move me. And on concrete, present-day matters, much of what JLM had to say was nonsensical, ridiculous, or a lot of ideological hot air. As for Hollande, yes, of course, he’s about as ‘gauche light’ as they come. And Jean-François Copé’s zinger last week on him being an “anguille” is being picked up by others. I am not an irréductible of Hollande but his electoral base is not the same as JLM’s and the masses of fonctionnaires, agents à statut – many à la retraite -, and other militants associatifs who were at the Bastille yesterday. It is middle class, generally staid, and considerably larger in number. One is not going to get soaring oratory from any serious aspirant to executive power from the gauche gestionnaire. When Socialists start to talk like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, they look both ridiculous and suspect.
For what it’s worth, Hollande’s Cirque d’hiver meeting did feature Mazarine Pingeot reading a letter from Louise Michel to Victor Hugo.
For what it’s worth… Precisely…
Obviously his speech was not intended to deal with present day matters. He was fishing for emotional support putting himself as an héritier of french social history. You might well be right in terms of his electoral base. I am no agent à statut nor militant associatif. I observe that for exemple my wife who is an artist and yet voted Sarkozy in 2007 (because she felt Sego would drawn in the job and Nicolas had the balls to shake the old country !) will vote Melenchon au premier tour . But despite our many disagreements with Meluche, we both feel the need to express that voting “à gauche” for Hollande (who is only an inch more à gauche than DSK would have been), is only a sad last resort choice, with no expectation from a man not truly up to the challenge. We expect better and more. An opinion she and I share about Obama, another president “faute de mieux”. This growing frustration in front of mediocre political leaders makes me feel something is slowly changing. We feel dissed. On all levels. Economical, cultural, social, etc.+ national and intl. We the people become reluctant europeans because we expected more from Europe, not economicaly but as a political project, as a goal and it becomes blatant we once more were fooled. Oner reason I don’t believe in charismatic leaders.
ps : great blog ! thanks.
@Massilian: Voting for Hollande will be a vote de raison, that’s for sure. But that’s okay by me. I have few illusions about politicians and what they can or cannot accomplish. So long as a president or PM – current or potential – is solid, smart, experienced, has the right inclinations, and can exercise authority and inspire respect, I don’t care if s/he can deliver a stirring speech or give me frissons. Les Français in particular expect too much of a President. They want an outsized figure, a grand homme. Mais c’est fini les grands hommes. Il n’y en a plus.
On Obama being faute de mieux, this certainly wasn’t the case in 2008 for so many of his voters. People’s expectations were too high. Obama certainly made mistakes – and a few significant ones – but his hands were also tied and the forces arrayed against him were formidable.
As for Europe as a political project, this is what the European Constitutional Treaty was all about. But a majority of French voters didn’t want it. So it didn’t happen.
Glad you like the blog.
For me, a vote against the dominant parties is sometimes reasonable eg. in the last UK elections, considering Labour’s craven behaviour during the invasion of Iraq, I would probably have voted for the Liberal Democrats (if I were British). Of course, in that case I would have been very disappointed with what they did with my vote but it would have been a reasonable gamble.
I doubt that I would vote for Mélenchon even if I were more in sympathy with his politics (if I were French). For me, it’s so important that Sarkozy, with his bigoted coterie and rabble rousing speeches, isn’t the winner that I couldn’t justify a gamble on Mélenchon.
p.s. If Hollande wins, France should become the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to legalise gay marriage, which I’d like to see.
Gay marriage. This is the problem. With Holland President, we will just have gay marriage. Clearly a big issue isn’t it ?
This country does not need either Louise Michel or gay marriage.
It needs a manager who will fix, health, education and pension. Who will tackle clientelism and corporatism.
It needs a manager who will ask people why we need so many African slaves when we have so many jobless people.
Is that because our people are lazy or because the job are shit? And if the jobs are shit, why do give them to immigrant? Because they are undermensch? because we can use them without seeing them and swipe them below the carpet in drab banlieues? But what about their wives, about their children; what about this hypocrisy.
It’s dead easy to give papers to sans papiers without wondering why they are here and what they do and why. And without living in their shitty banlieue.
It’s dead easy to be of the Gauche molle avec bonne conscience in this country. This is the default position. But what about the real problems?
Melanchon, Marine Le Pen, two sides of the same hateful coin.
With all the Hammer & Cycle, L’Internationale, and glee at the hateful class warfare, violent rhetoric, where is your coverage of the cold blooded assassination of three French paratroopers outside their casernes in Toulouse and Montauban last week, and the blood curdling assassinations of three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi outside their school in Toulouse?
The worst incident of anti-Semitic violence in France in thirty years.
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