The Insoumis candidate has emerged as the third candidate in recent polls, but remains several points behind his far-right opponent Marine Le Pen for qualification in the second round.
When a communist listener asked him what would convince him to vote for him, Jean-Luc Mélenchon replied: "The useful vote has never been our argument, I'm not going to use it and say + the vote is useless if you vote for Fabien Roussel+".
But, added the tribune, "if you vote for me, it is the most concrete vote not only for a program but also to eliminate the far right in the first round".
Sunday during his meeting in Marseille, he had already proclaimed: "If you want to block Le Pen, do it in the first round!"
On Wednesday, he also asked the communist listener to "trust (his) intelligence": "Our programs are extremely close... On meat we say not the same, on nuclear too but there was a mode of settlement and I proposed to Fabien to come back to it: a referendum".
The PCF candidate Fabien Roussel is in favor of the development of nuclear power alongside renewable energies, while Mr. Mélenchon wants to get out of it as early as 2045, or even "faster" if he can.
The deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône repeated that the situation in Ukraine had in his eyes reinforced the conviction that having nuclear power plants on its territory was "extremely dangerous".
© 2022 AFP