It is just seven p.m. this Friday, October 4 when Jean-Luc Mélenchon prepares, once again, to fracture the union of the left. His method: evoke the conflict in the Middle East, a subject which seems to polarize the left as much as French society. Invited by the Action populaire association – branch of La France insoumise (LFI) – as part of its format called “on the political moment”, the rebellious leader climbs onto the platform, slips behind the desk.
Detached from his notes, he delivers his speech, punctuated by the cheers of a hundred young faces who have come to cheer him. In the front row, LFI deputies Manuel Bompard, Louis Boyard and Antoine Léaument, who are among his most loyal lieutenants, listen to him religiously. At a quarter to nine, the same people applaud when he issues his “recommendation” for the coming days. That of putting Palestinian flags “wherever we can”. This, from October 8, the day after the first anniversary of the pogrom of October 7, 2023, which marks the starting point of the resurgence of the conflict between the Hebrew state and the Palestinian terrorist organization.
The rebellious faithful unite behind their leader
An idea that came to him following a “letter” from Patrick Hetzel, newly appointed Minister of Higher Education last September. A direct reference to the press release from the Ministry of Higher Education which “strongly condemns” the “demonstrations and positions taken of a political nature, linked to the conflict in the Middle East” in “recent days in several establishments, in Sciences Po Paris in particular. Thus, Jean-Luc Mélenchon calls on “student youth” to “rebellion” in the face of what he presents as “a prohibition” from the government.
As usual, once the signal is given by the rebellious patriarch, the soldiers follow suit. “While the war is now engulfing the entire region, mobilization must be redoubled and hanging Palestinian flags in universities is a good idea,” rebellious MP Aurélien Taché argued on BFMTV on Saturday. In his wake, Louis Boyard, present at the demonstration in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese people, reiterates his mentor’s call from his X account. “On October 8, we will raise their flags [celui de la Palestine et celui du Liban] whatever the ban from the Minister of Universities.”
Less expected among the supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s appeal, the purged from LFI found nothing to object to the idea. Speaking to Franceinfo on Saturday morning, Raquel Garrido believes that the initiative “can be” perceived as a sign of France’s attachment to peace. At the same time, Clémentine Autain is the guest on the France Inter morning show. Although claiming to “discover this proposal”, and “not to have thought about it”, the co-founder of “L’après” – a movement created at the initiative of several rebellious dissidents – hammered home “the importance of demonstrating our solidarity with the Palestinians and the Lebanese.
New distance from the PS
Problem: not everyone within the New Popular Front (NFP) welcomes the injunction with the same enthusiasm. In recent months, the left seems to have adopted two new rules. The first is that the rebels, if they wish to remain so, show unequivocal loyalty to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The second requires other political parties to quickly distance themselves from La France insoumise, as soon as it becomes engulfed in yet another controversy. Rule that the leader of the rose party does not forget.
So Olivier Faure rushed this Saturday to deliver a snub to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “We will not call for the display of Palestinian flags in universities, because quite simply we do not oppose the dead to the dead,” he declared on the occasion of the political return of the socialists of the North. And the deputy for Seine-et-Marne launched a dig at the retired deputy for Marseille: “We must be people who create peace rather than being people who fuel conflict.”
For Sandrine Rousseau, Mélenchon is “provocative”
A few hours earlier, PS-Place Publique MEP Raphaël Glucksmann castigated LFI’s “quest for permanent buzz”, whose “goal is not that we talk about the situation in Palestine, but that ‘we’re talking about them.’ Accusations that resonate with those of some within the Environmentalists. Invited on the LCI set on Sunday, Sandrine Rousseau considered that Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s statements “were part of the things that provoke”. And the environmentalist MP concluded: “I think there are other ways” of warning about “what is happening in Gaza”.
As for example, going to demonstrate “in the street to express support for this or that cause”, argues François Hollande who also, unsurprisingly, dissociated himself from the exit of his ally within the left-wing coalition. And the seventh president of the Fifth Republic, elected last July as deputy for Corrèze, emphasized: “The flags that we must carry in public places are the French flags. The rest is propaganda that does not has no place in public places.”