On 7 May Jean-Luc Mélenchon launched his slate for France’s 12 and 19 June National Assembly elections, NUPES, the New Ecologist and Social Popular Union, with a rally of 1,500 in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers. The slate will have a common platform, not yet published, but featuring a rise in the minimum wage, a price freeze on some basic goods, a restored wealth tax, reducing pension age towards 60, and green policies. It shares out constituencies between Mélenchon’s own La France Insoumise, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and the green EELV. Its proclaimed aim is to force...