Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Jean -Luc Mélenchon ( born August 19, 1951 in Tangier ) is a French Socialist politician. He is an MEP and Chairman of the Parti de Gauche. He was presidential candidate of the Front de gauche electoral alliance in the 2012 presidential election.

Mélenchon was from 1986 to 2010, with interruptions member of the French Senate for the department of Essonne, where he already was a city councilor, and later deputy mayor of Massy since 1983. From March 2000 to May 2002 he was Minister for Vocational Education in the Cabinet Jospin. Together with Henri Emmanuelli represented Mélenchon the left socialist flow Nouveau Monde within the Parti Socialiste (PS). Although the party had expressed in a ballot for a yes to the European Constitution, Mélenchon operational campaigning for a No vote in the French referendum on the Constitution.

In 2008 Mélenchon resigned from the PS, as Ségolène Royal in a straw vote to the party presidium reached the first rank. He threw Royal to pursue a " right price ", and announced their intention to establish Parti de Gauche with a new left party collection.

In the European elections in France in 2009, he was the top candidate of the newly formed party in the constituency Sud-Ouest and moved as a deputy in the European Parliament. Because of its frequent compared to other MPs absence in the voting in Parliament Mélenchon was attacked in the sequence.

In the 2012 presidential election, he stood as a candidate. His campaign took place in the media and public a lot of attention. In the first round he was around eleven percent of the vote, in fourth place. For the second round, in which even the candidate Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy faced, he issued a recommendation to vote for Hollande.

When taking place shortly after the presidential election, election to the National Assembly, he resigned in Pas -de- Calais for election in order to " block the way " in his own words of there candidates in the same constituency leader of the right-wing National Front, Marine Le Pen. However Mélenchon reached on the first ballot, only 21.5 % of the vote and ended up behind that of Le Pen ( 42.3 % ) and the socialist candidate Philippe Kemel ( 23.7 %).

Mélenchon is known and notorious, widely well -known for its relentless, polemical and - also in dialogue with journalists - often aggressive discourse. In Germany attended in June 2013 Mélenchon comments in a radio interview on France Inter for excitement, where he practiced mocking criticism of the Germans.

In the Krimkrise 2014 he criticized the U.S. policy of Ukraine and the EU. The plan to move the NATO borders closer to Russia, was unacceptable, stupid, irresponsible and provocative. The U.S., he referred to in this context as " North American puppeteer " and parts of the new Ukrainian government as a " pro-European Nazis."