The strong showing by Mélenchon’s Nupes makes the left a contender down the road. 

The sudden revival of the left has to do in no small measure with this quintessentially un-left notion: personal charisma. 

Macron was re-elected with 58.5 percent of the vote, but 63 percent of the French hope he loses the National Assembly elections in June.

One may surmise that the left-wing voters who think about supporting Le Pen on April 24 are not converting to the Far Right but rather claiming her as one of theirs.

What is emerging in France is a wide Resentment Coalition that pits the ‘peripheral nation,’ Right and Left, against the ‘elites,’ and which, potentially, might attract more than 60 percent of the vote. 

MICHEL GURFINKIEL