At the start of France's bitterly contested presidential election campaign, critics predicted that Jean-Luc Melenchon's confrontational approach to politics - including calls for "civic insurrection" and talk of a 100 per cent tax-band for those earning more than €1 million - would see him shot down in flames well before the first round in three weeks.
Instead, the French seem to be taking to him. Opinion polls put Melenchon on as much as 14 per cent and rising, placing him above perennial middle man Francois Bayrou and snapping at the heels of Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right Front National, who is in third place.
Melenchon, 60, who graduated in philosophy, represents the Front de Gauche, or Left Party, having abandoned the Socialist Party in 2008. He is standing on an eclectic manifesto entitled "Humans First".
Some on the left have expressed fears that the popularity of Melenchon's radical programme could threaten the Socialist candidate Francois Hollande, who will need to harvest Left Party votes in an eventual run-off against incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy. The danger for Hollande is that drifting too far on to Melenchon's terrain could alienate centrist voters he also needs.
Melenchon, an entertaining loose cannon, has described Hollande as being as useful as the "captain of a pedalo" in a storm. But his most virulent outbursts are aimed at Le Pen, whom he has called a "filthy beast spitting hatred", a "bat" and a "dark presence". His programme veers from workers' rights, controlling the banks, ending market speculation, escaping from the European Union in its current form and forging a new alliance to ecological planning and dismantling Nato.
