The most dangerous clown in France: Crackpot far-Left policies that would bankrupt the country. A 90% top tax rate. A burning hatred of NATO. Yet Jean-Luc Melenchon is now on the brink of becoming PM...

A bespectacled aged man successful a achromatic leather overgarment stomps up nan stairs to his agency and confronts nan bearded plain-clothes policeman guarding nan door.

Squaring up to nan officer, his look wrong an inch of nan different man's, he unleashes a spittle-laden rant.

'I'm telling you, you can't extremity maine from getting into my office,' he yells successful fury. 'We aren't thugs aliases bandits. Go and do your occupation arsenic a constabulary officer! I americium nan republic! I'm a politician! Get retired of my measurement and unfastened this door!'

The prima of this epic tantrum, which erupted successful 2018 erstwhile constabulary officers searched his agency complete allegations of nan improper usage of governmental costs – and was preserved for posterity connected YouTube – was Jean-Luc Melenchon, nan leader of an ultra-Left statement called France Unbowed.

After his parliamentary grouping won much seats than immoderate different statement successful nan Left-wing conjugation that emerged arsenic nan biggest bloc aft past weekend's election, Melenchon is simply a contender to beryllium France's adjacent premier minister. It's a imaginable that should terrify anyone pinch France's champion interests astatine heart.

For Melenchon – who was fixed a three-month suspended situation word and an €8,000 (£6,700) good pursuing nan unedifying confrontation extracurricular his agency – is nan astir vulnerable comedian successful France, pinch nan pomposity (and waistline) of Kim Jong Un.

It's initially difficult to spot really he tin beryllium taken seriously. But he's a mesmerising demagogue and nan snake lipid he is peddling appeals to his halfway vote, concentrated successful densely populated suburbs of grim nationalist lodging pinch ample migrant populations. Just arsenic successful Islington, plentifulness of champagne socialists ballot for him, too.

They each emotion his passionate support for Palestine, his volition to fling unfastened nan French borders and his instinctive hatred of nan police.

Speaking of his volition to instantly little nan pension property to 60, which would bankrupt nan state, Melenchon warned that immoderate deputies who situation to ballot against it 'will beryllium named, registered and handed complete to nan People. That's democracy. I dream they will not beryllium deported to a betterment camp'. Was he joking? He's not renowned for his consciousness of humour.

If Melenchon sewage his way, he'd move France into a European Venezuela and spark an exodus of able citizens fleeing his projected 90 per cent apical complaint of taxation (unless they're put disconnected by his exit taxes connected anyone trying to leave).

Melenchon's positions are a toxic operation of Communism, alliances pinch militant Islamists and eco-radicals. He stands for higher wages and value controls connected nutrient and fuel, while nursing a burning hatred of America, Nato and Germany.

It adds up to a manifesto that's madder than 1 of those absurdist French farces by nan nationalist playwright, Moliere.

Yet now, by nan slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, this wacky rabble-rouser, pinch a fondness for Mao jackets, who cultivates a 'man of nan people' image contempt having a nett worthy of €2.5million, is demanding nan cardinal to nan Hotel Matignon, nan office of nan French PM.

So really has this contemptible agitator risen to wrong rubbing region of nan second-highest agency successful nan land?

A choir boy successful his youth, Melenchon, a vigorous 72, is – for illustration his brother-in-arms Jeremy Corbyn – a governmental lifer who, isolated from a little stint arsenic a coach arsenic a young man, has ne'er had a due job. A personnel of nan Internationalist Communist Organisation (OCI), a Trotskyist governmental party, from 1972 to 1976, he past joined nan Socialist Party earlier splitting to recovered nan Left Party, a conjugation that allied itself pinch nan French Communist Party.

Melenchon first won elected agency successful 1983 erstwhile he became a section councillor successful Massy, a municipality conscionable extracurricular Paris. Three years later, he was elected to nan Senate, nan precocious location of nan French parliament, and – amazingly fixed his later flakiness –served arsenic 'Minister for Vocational Education' from 2000 to 2002 for Lionel Jospin.

In 2009, he was elected to nan European Parliament and went connected to service 8 years an MEP.

He made nan first of 3 attempts to triumph nan French presidency successful 2012, finishing pinch conscionable complete 11 per cent of nan vote.

After founding 'France Unbowed' successful 2016 and installing himself arsenic its ultimate leader, he vanished successful 4th spot successful nan 2017 statesmanlike election, pinch 19.6 per cent of nan vote. He made his 3rd and last statesmanlike bid successful 2022, winning 22 per cent of nan ballot but grounded to scope nan 2nd round.

It is adjacent to opportunity that, successful his full governmental career, he has achieved thing beyond a estimation arsenic a bully and extreme – and yet he trousers a salary and allowances package of €10,000 a month, 4 times nan mean salary.

Now his hr whitethorn yet person come. Melenchon finds himself successful nan heavy of a struggle to reconstitute a reliable authorities – amid nan shambles created by president Emmanuel Macron's unfathomable determination to telephone a threat election, and aft Marine Le Pen's hard-Right National Rally's astonishment capacity successful nan European parliament elections.

Repairing nan governmental devastation he's wreaked is an cognition of bewildering complexity and 1 that whitethorn not beryllium possible. Fifteen factions are now represented successful nan National Assembly and they don't play nicely together.

Putting together a conjugation to win nan authorities Macron dismissed is akin to solving a Rubik's Cube while blindfolded. And God thief France if Melenchon ever emerges a winner.

Macron has been Melenchon's witless enabler. Macron fto him into his tent. Now he's refusing to leave. Yet contempt nan bombast, Melenchon's utmost Leftists really mislaid crushed successful nan last results aft Macron's cack-handed electioneering, winning only 11 per cent of nan celebrated ballot (versus 37 per cent for Le Pen) and falling from 77 to 74 seats successful nan 577-member assembly. His belief that he has won immoderate benignant of instruction is symptomatic of his boundless self-importance.

Melenchon would plunge France into nan mother of each economic, societal and governmental crises but, successful his customary intemperate fashion, is threatening anyone who defies him. If he's not fixed nan reins of power, he vows to return his supporters connected to nan streets.

Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen – who sewage a higher percent of nan ballot successful France than Keir Starmer did successful Britain – has been exiled to opposition.

But if Macron's volition was to destruct her, he has failed. She's proved again and again that immoderate doesn't termination her makes her stronger.

What emerges from nan machinations successful Paris could beryllium a technocratic government, managing regular affairs but pinch nary legislative agenda. Or immoderate benignant of benevolent nationalist authorities of each nan talents, which seems much of a dream than contiguous prospect, fixed nan egos involved.

The replacement is an unstable conjugation pinch a shelf-life of possibly weeks aliases days.

It is earnestly to beryllium hoped that nary matter really overmuch France seems to person had nan tense breakdown I person agelong predicted, cooler heads will prevail. And, arsenic a caller bid emerges, Jean-Luc Melenchon is allowed obscurity adjacent immoderate of it.