Rebellious France, “we have folded them and we will fold them again.” Raphaël Glucksmann is categorical this Tuesday, June 2: if he has not yet officially declared himself for the presidential election, he has no doubt of eventually establishing himself as the first left-wing candidate in the first round, ahead of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. But his demonstration, which is mainly based on the results of the last European election, is not without risk.
After the release of his book and ten days before his first meeting, the poll dynamic around the Place Publique MEP is struggling to take hold. In the latest Ipsos-BVA-CESI opinion study for The Parisian published this June 2, Raphaël Glucksmann is credited with 11% to 14.5% of voting intentions. Which makes him one of the rare left-wing candidates to exceed 10%… with Jean-Luc Mélenchon. In detail, the founder of Place Publique is ahead of that of LFI in only one configuration, that of a withdrawal of Édouard Philippe in favor of Gabriel Attal. But he prefers to focus on another scenario: that of a candidacy from Édouard Philippe (without Gabriel Attal), which would lead, again according to the institutes, to a perfect equality (13%) with the rebel.
« Jean-Luc Mélenchon a déjà commencé sa campaign et nous sommes égalité ou devant »wants to believe Raphaël Glucksmann, speaking on RMC and BFMTV, when he is not yet officially in the race. And to continue: “The truth is that the last time there was a confrontation with LFI in a national election, we defeated them. And we will bend them again because an overwhelming majority of left-wing voters do not want this permanent fracturing of society.”
Cabbages and carrots?
The MEP is referring here to the European elections of June 2024. After yet another battle to know whether, yes or not, the left was going to leave as a group, each chapel finally presented its list, led by Manon Aubry for LFI and Raphaël Glucksmann for the Place Publique – PS alliance. On the evening of June 9, the MEP emerged as the third man in the vote, with 13.83% of the votes cast. Leading on the left, he is 4 points ahead of the rebellious list, which misses the symbolic 10% mark by a hair. The balance of power is indeed to his advantage.
The comparison with the presidential campaign remains no less risky. First of all because if the Place Publique РPS alliance score is good, it needs to be moderated taking into account participation. Only 51% of those registered on the electoral lists had mobilized for these relatively shunned elections, where the presidential elections always bring many more voters to the polls (73% in the first round of 2022). Overall, the number of votes cast in favor of the Glucksmann European list represents 6.92% of those registered. The figure drops to 4.95% for the rebellious list. But in the first round of the 2022 presidential election, the candidacy of Jean-Luc M̩lenchon convinced 15.82% of those registered. That is approximately double the number of voters who chose the Glucksmann list for the Europeans.
Then there is the very nature of the vote – European for one, national for the other. Raphaël Glucksmann quickly established himself as one of the most prominent French elected officials in Brussels, at the forefront on certain subjects. He notably gained notoriety by successfully popularizing his fight for the defense of the Uighur minority. But for a presidential election where the priorities are above all national, it still has a lot to do to achieve the same stature. This is evidenced by his failed participation in the debate with Éric Zemmour in November 2025: while this event was presented as a mini-test between two aspirants to the Élysée, the MEP had a hard time convincing. To the point of making several mea-culpas.
Le précédent Jadot
Above all, Raphaël Glucksmann is not the first to shine in a European election before trying his luck in the presidential election. A certain Yannick Jadot followed the same path a few years ago. Head of the Europe-Ecologie-Les Verts list in the 2019 European elections, he embodied his camp’s breakthrough: a good third position, with 13.47% of the votes cast, equivalent to 3,052,529 votes. Not so far from the 3,424,216 votes collected by the Glucksmann list in 2024. But in the 2022 presidential election where he represented his camp, Yannick Jadot’s score collapsed below 5%, in a configuration where all the parties of left had presented a candidate.
During this election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon largely established himself as the leading left-wing candidate. He had actually benefited from a useful voting phenomenon, in addition to that of membership, to collect 21.95% of the votes, the best score of his three candidacies. Clearly, many left-wing voters, not necessarily rebellious sympathizers, chose his ballot based on his ability to qualify for the second round. An issue that does not exist for Europeans, where each candidate can refuel, without risking seeing part of their electorate being siphoned off by another.
So, will Raphaël Glucksmann succeed where Yannick Jadot failed? The Place Publique MEP co-signed with the environmentalist senator a manifesto to nominate a single candidate from the left, outside the LFI and without a primary. The name of this elected official is hoped for at the end of the summer. Or more or less in the timetable that Raphaël Glucksmann set for himself to formalize his candidacy. Until then, the success of his meeting, which comes a week after that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and future opinion surveys will say a little more about his ability to « plier » the match with rebellious France. Or, in any case, to argue with him.
