Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the riots’ chief instigator and leader of the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI), is currently ranked second in most presidential polls. Marine Le Pen remains the favourite despite her continuing legal problems.

But the polls do not reveal Mélenchon’s strategy, his organisation, his coherence or his ruthlessness. It has become fashionable to dismiss his chances. He is too radical, they say, too inflammatory. As if that has not benefited other modern underdogs.

Born in Tangier in 1951, the former socialist schoolteacher became a senator at 35 and briefly served as a minister under the former PM Lionel Jospin. Mélenchon has spent the past 18 years building a party in his own image. This is his fourth presidential run, and there has been steady progress: in 2022 he came within a point and a half of the second round.

Mélenchon is quite obviously brilliant. Contrary to most other French politicians, who have the literacy of dried oysters, he is well-read and can speak well. He can cite Victor Hugo, whose parliamentary speeches he reveres as much as Les Misérables, as well as Robespierre and Michelet’s history of the Revolution. He is what the French call a tribun, a tribune, an orator, who regularly summons countless minions. His rally in June in Saint-Denis united tens of thousands of people.

Mélenchon has built a formidable political machine. It is hierarchical and motivated, possibly more so than any other party’s. In France, the trained ear can spot when his circle has held one of its internal strategy meetings: rumours start spreading, all using the same turns of phrase.

His team has adapted old-school Red methods to........

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