A French Rafale fighter-bomber. Many French now fear NATO, to which they belong, starting a war with a nuclear Russia.

Presidential hopeful says France should leave NATO and partner with Russia

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Mélenchon

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Wiki:

Accusations of anti-Semitism[edit]

In 2013, Mélenchon was accused of making “unacceptable comments” targeting Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, notably prompting the reaction of Harlem Désir: “Mélenchon should immediately withdraw these unacceptable comments that he made using the vocabulary of the 1930s”.^[100]

In August 2014, during a speech in Grenoble, Mélenchon used the controversial term “aggressive communities” in his criticism of a Jewish organization – the Representative Council of Jews of France (CRIF), a coalition of organisations representing French Jewry – “We’ve had enough of CRIF”, asserting “France is the opposite of aggressive communities that lecture to the rest of country.” He also declared “We do not believe that any people is superior to another”, which was viewed as an anti-Semitic trope.^[101] Mélenchon’s comments came in the wake of a series of protests across France against Operation Protective Edge. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched on synagogues in the Paris area, while multiple anti-Semitic attacks had been reported across France within the previous month.^[102] Instead of condemning the attacks, he praised the protesters: “If we have anything to condemn, then it is the actions of citizens who decided to rally in front of the embassy of a foreign country or serve its flag, weapon in hand.”^[103]

In July 2017, Mélenchon maintained that Republican France bears no guilt in the Holocaust, and criticized Emmanuel Macron for admitting at a gathering in Paris remembering the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup that Vichy France was the legal French government at the time, thus conceding the French State’s responsibility in the deportation of the Jews. Mélenchon’s comments were echoing those of former President of France Mitterrand, who declared in 1994 that the round-up and deportation of Jews to death camps during the war was the work of the country’s Nazi occupiers and “Vichy France”, an illegitimate entity distinct from France. Haaretz noted that Marine Le Pen had made comments similar to Mélenchon’s three months earlier.^[104]

Following the murder in March 2018 in Paris of Mireille Knoll, an elderly Jewish woman who survived the events at Vel d’Hiv and the Holocaust, Mélenchon ignored requests from CRIF leadership for him to stay away from a march in her memory.^[105] As with Marine Le Pen, who made the same choice to be present, despite the appeal, he was booed and abused by a group of extremist protesters.^[106] In November 2019, Mélenchon further accused CRIF of practicing “blatant, violent, and aggressive sectarianism, namely against me”, after it asking him not to attend the memorial ceremony for Knoll more than 18 months earlier. No physical violence occurred at the march; police accompanied Mélenchon and his team away from the proceedings.^[107]

In December 2019, he deplored that UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn gave in to the accusations of anti-Semitism in his party, saying Corbyn “had to endure, unaided, churlish anti-Semitism claims from England’s chief rabbi and various influence networks linked to Likud. Instead of riposting, he spent his time apologising and making pledges … It showed a weakness that troubled the popular sectors [of the electorate]”.^[108][109] Mélenchon later published a post on his personal blog denouncing the use of anti-Semitism as a pretext to launch smear campaigns against political figures. He called the “method … absurd, offending, but, more importantly, dangerous. For all this is at the expense of the real fight against anti-Semitism. Its main result is to lower the vigilance threshold of sincere anti-racists.”^[110]

In 2020, while interviewed about the French police, he said, “I don’t know if Jesus was on a cross, but he was apparently put there by his own people”. This declaration was condemned by the Wiesenthal Center, who said that it was spreading belief in Jewish deicide; they noted that this allegation was condemned by the papal encyclical Nostra Aetate, and noted that “its imagery fueled violence across Europe, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust”.^[111]

In October 2021, Mélenchon was again accused of anti-Semitism, after he made a comment singling out the Jewish tradition as responsible for the far-right political positions of Éric Zemmour. His remark was condemned as anti-Semitic by different political figures across the political spectrum, such as Christophe Castaner (LREM), Gilbert Collard ( RN), and Pierre Moscovici (PS).^[112] Political journalist Edwy Plenel responded: “No, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, racism, historical revisionism, sexism, apologism for Pétain, and this hate of others that Zemmour spouts obsessively, are in no way Jewish traditions.”^[113]

Accusations of promoting conspiracy theories[edit]

Mélenchon has often accused the “mediacracy” of specifically being against him and his proposed policies, and claims that the media is controlled by oligarchs.^[114] His populist and self-proclaimed “anti-system” rhetoric has also been accused of feeding into conspiracies.

In 2011, French historian Nicolas Lebourg considered that Jean-Luc Mélenchon is considered to be “a left-wing conspiracy theorist” by authors who believe that “denouncing the oligarchy is illegitimate”. According to Conspiracy Watch, figures of the “left of the left”, such as Noam Chomsky or Jean-Luc Mélenchon, avoid criticising conspiracy myths present in their own ranks, because they try to spare certain “conspiracy activists”. But if Jean-Luc Mélenchon practices this “demagogy“, it would be “quite unfair and abusive to classify him as a conspiracy theorist” according to the organisation.^[115]

In June 2021 Mélenchon sparked controversy when he claimed that “in the last week of the presidential campaign, we’ll have a grave incident or murder” that he claims would feed into an anti-Islam sentiment, citing the attack on retiree Paul Voise in 2002 shortly before the 1st round of the presidential election, the Jihadist attack against a Jewish school in Toulouse by Mohammed Merah a few months before the presidential election of 2012, and the terrorist attack in Paris a few days before the 1st round of the 2017 presidential election. His statements sparked condemnation outside of his political party.^[116] Rudy Reichstadt, director of Conspiracy Watch, claimed that Mélenchon has been promoting conspiracy theories for several years.^[117]

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