Voters decide price of election dinner

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BEDOUS, France, April 21 (UPI) -- Election night dinner at a restaurant in the south of France has a price tag determined by how well Jean-Luc Melenchon does in the first round of voting.

The controversial far-left candidate has not done spectacularly so far, with polls predicting he will garner 13 to 17 percent of the vote. His electoral coalition, Le Front de Gauche, or The Left Front, calls for a 100 percent tax on anyone earning more than $475,740 a year.

Jean-Michel Jolivad, owner of the Pyrenees restaurant La Terasse, is planning an election dinner special with a price tied to Melenchon's forecasted less-than-stellar performance at the polls.

"Jean-Luc Melenchon is the only candidate who is pissing everyone off at the moment," Jolivad told The Local. "So I've decided to throw a party in his honor. If the Front de Gauche gets 12 percent of the vote, my customers will pay 12 [euros, about $15] for their meal."

Of the 10 candidates competing in Sunday's vote, Melenchon's predicted performance is better suited to the average price of a dinner. Other candidates, however, would have put Jolivad out of business.

"An evening in honor of Phillippe Poutou [the New Anti-Capitalist Party candidate] would not have worked, he's credited with 1.5 percent of the vote," he said. "At that rate we would have been serving peanuts and water."