Feel le Bern: How an aging leftist upended the French election

The alt-right isn't the only energetic new global movement

Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
(Image credit: ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images)

Like so many recent elections, France's presidential vote this Sunday has been upended by an aging leftist.

Until recently it seemed as though the two top contenders would be the former investment banker Emmanuel Macron of the centrist En Marche!, and Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front — with scandal-plagued François Fillon, of the center-right Republicans, as an outside possibility. If nobody gets a majority, then there will be a runoff between the top two on May 7.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.