ON APRIL 18, JeanLuc Melenchon, candidate of the France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party for the presidential election will address simultaneously seven meetings.

While in Dijon, he will speak to supporters in Nantes, Port (Reunion Island), Nancy, Montpellier, Clermond-Ferrand and Grenoble via a remote link.

Third in the polls behind the farright candidate Marine Le Pen and the centrist candidate and ex-Socialist Party member Emmanuel Macron, Melenchon is now the only candidate whose share of the vote is currently increasing.

As nearly half of people polled have not yet decided whether — or for whom — they will vote, anything is possible.

The first round of the French election will be on April 23. The two candidates with the most votes will then be put to a second vote on May 7.

What distinguishes the France Insoumise from the other political parties is the pledge to organise a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution to end “the monarchy of the presidential system and the political caste” and extend the “intervention of people” in decision-making.

This programme, discussed since February 2016 “by thousands of people and organisations,” proposes radical reforms including a 16 per cent immediate increase in the minimum wage; grants for students; heavy taxation on high earners and tax evaders; a return to the 35-hour working week (32 in some sectors); pay equity for women; pensions at 60; an end to homelessness and poverty affecting nine million people; free healthcare and a disability benefit equivalent to the minimum wage.

To tackle the environmental crisis, it proposes to replace nuclear power with renewable energy, smaller-scale organic farming and to limit extraction to what nature can reconstitute.

The programme also aims to develop new industries from the sea, space and digital technologies.

It proposes to increase France’s independence by withdrawing from Nato, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and to radically change the current European Union treaties (including ending the privatisation of public services) or France will leave the EU.

It speaks of France developing a “solidarity protectionism” against globalisation which has meant “deindustrialisation and unemployment” in metropolitan countries and the “domination of multinationals and unequal trade, leading to more migration” in developing countries. It opposes wars and wants to give more power to the United Nations.

In Rennes, at one of the many meetings Melenchon addressed, he described the situation of women, who make up 80 per cent of minimum wage earners working mostly in the service sector while increasingly having to care for children and the elderly for free.

“Women are the ones who trigger revolutions,” he said.

They were the first to break down the system in the 1917 Revolution and the ones who “carried the 1789 revolution through by marching to Versailles to get the king.”

For those of us in Payday Men’s Network who are supporting the Global Women’s Strike perspective to invest in caring not killing, and to pay a living wage to all workers, including mothers and other carers, this is a hopeful and exciting programme.

In Marseille, addressing 70,000 people at an open-air meeting, Melenchon asked people to hold a minute’s silence for the 30,000 refugees who have lost their lives in the Mediterranean.

Condemning the US attack on Syria, he concluded: “I will be the president for peace.”

Next June, separate elections will elect MPs, and France Insoumise will put forward candidates drawn from trade unionists, whistleblowers, community activists, radical scientists and intellectuals, feminists, ecologists and farmers chosen by popular assemblies.

These MPs “must serve mobilised people, enlighten them and express their voice within Parliament.”

Therefore they must not “act according to their own choices, without accountability or collective discipline.”

The power of France Insoumise, which is a movement and not a political party, is people’s participation. Almost 400,000 people so far have showed their support and over 3,000 support groups have mushroomed to publicise and organise this “citizens’ revolution.” France Insoumise claims to be now the “most important political force in France.”

In a global climate where austerity has increased distrust of traditional political parties, and where people are learning about the dangers of electing a Donald Trump like figure, France Insoumise has the potential to unite an unprecedented wave of discontent.

This could resonate in Britain, especially given the movement that (twice) elected Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader, the rest of Europe and beyond.

Let’s not forget the Bernie Sanders movement in the US and the recent election of left-wing president Lenin Moreno in Ecuador.