French far-left eyes future role if Socialists win

Reuters:

Buoyed by a wave of support for its firebrand presidential candidate, a renascent far-left movement in France could cause a headache for Socialist Francois Hollande if he wins the upcoming election by jostling for weight in his government.

With radical leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon riding a tide of popular support ahead of presidential and legislative elections, front-runner Hollande may be obliged to give the far left a government post and make policy concessions or see his centre-left agenda cramped by an unruly left-wing parliamentary group.

While Melenchon is adamant he would not want a ministerial post under Hollande, and prefers to keep his anti-capitalist fight on the street, his Communist Party allies are more power-hungry and analysts see a messy struggle ahead.

Opinion polls put Hollande up to 10 percentage points ahead of conservative Nicolas Sarkozy in a May 6 deciding runoff.

Melenchon's score of 13-17 percent in surveys for the first-round vote on April 22, against the 2-3 percent polls given the Greens party, means his coalition could pressure Hollande to ditch a deal with the Greens securing their support for the runoff vote in exchange for help winning seats in parliament.

The far left counts 21 seats out of a total 577 in today's national assembly. If Melenchon can rally his supporters for the two-round legislative vote on June 10 and 17 and squeeze out the Greens, he could score somewhere between 30 and 40 seats.

That would not leave Hollande dependent on the far left for a legislative majority, but markets would shudder at the thought of a noisy parliamentary group pushing Melenchon-influenced proposals and arguing against centre-left bills.

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