The French presidential candidate who wants to blow up the Franco-German engine

PARIS — Far-right leader Marine Le Pen isn’t the only candidate in France’s presidential election vowing to upend the status quo in the European Union. If far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon were to emerge as French president, he has signaled he would seek to overturn the bloc’s foundational relationship: the Franco-German partnership that has underpinned European integration for decades, but which he believes has primarily served Berlin’s interests. There are still nine months until France’s crucial presidential vote, but Mélenchon’s strong start to his campaign and the infighting among the rest of the left has positioned him as one of the best-placed candidates to challenge Le Pen in a second round, polling shows. That’s hardly seen as an encouraging prospect in Berlin. Mélenchon devoted an entire book in 2015 to his disdain for the German model and — in a clean break from the traditional Paris-Berlin alliance pushed by the last several French presidents — said this month that he would not commit to a recent series of agreements between French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on issues ranging from nuclear deterrence to industrial policy. Right now, a Mélenchon victory isn’t seen as likely in the halls of power across the Rhine, and recent surveys show Le Pen would handily defeat him if both advanced to a runoff. But German lawmakers acknowledge the anticapitalist’s disruptive potential. “Mélenchon’s political positions on key issues of European policy, his hostility toward Germany … would make him a massive problem for Franco-German cooperation,” said Roland Theis, a lawmaker from Merz’s conservatives known for his work on Franco-German issues. Berlin is much more focused on the prospect of a Le Pen victory, which would pose its own set of problems. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded her political party alongside Nazi collaborators and was notorious for downplaying the Holocaust. While the younger Le Pen has tried to distance the National Rally from its past, even kicking her father out of the party, she remains a strident euroskeptic who has vowed to slash French contributions to the European Union. Ahead of the pivotal contest, Germany and France have jointly expedited work on shared EU objectives, though they say their urgency is born out of economic necessity rather than getting work done ahead of a Le Pen presidency. But Mélenchon poses a threat to the current German government as well. Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron are pictured in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany on July 16, 2026. | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images “A Mélenchon presidency would significantly complicate bilateral and European cooperation at the highest levels,” said Anton Hofreiter, a Green lawmaker and head of the European affairs committee in the Bundestag. He warned that this could lead to European projects being built without French involvement, citing defense capabilities as an example. ‘The German poison’ Mélenchon’s antipathy toward Brussels and Berlin stems more from ideological opposition, especially to Germany, than the nationalist sentiment that fuels Le Pen’s euroskepticism. “The Germans are imposing ordoliberalism [a German-inspired vision of free-market economics with state oversight] on Europe,” said Aurélien Taché, a lawmaker from Mélenchon’s France Unbowed party who sits on the French National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee. “We are not anti-European; we are against ordoliberalism.” France Unbowed believes the Franco-German engine does not exist, but rather that the Germans are seeking to impose their agenda onto the EU. Instead, Mélenchon wants France to strengthen ties with China as well as French-speaking countries in Africa, as well as South American countries. He sees the United States as an imperialist danger, while Germany — despite its turbulent relations with President Donald Trump — views the transatlantic relationship as paramount to its foreign policy. Mélenc