“It’s true: we were told.” For several days, some French people who slipped an LFI ballot in the last elections have sworn that they will no longer be caught. In what proportion? We will see. We’ll see soon. But the observation is now evident in many conversations: the shameful quibbles of La France insoumise, which failed to qualify the Hamas attack against Israeli civilians as terrorist, have stunned even many of its voters, regardless of whatever their opinion regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and whatever their feeling regarding the Israeli response. Since October 7, as the images documented the most barbaric anti-Jewish attack since the Shoah – pogroms, kidnapped children, massacred families, savage rapes… – the quibbles and justifications of the Mélenchon house have revealed the ideological fold of this movement.
It’s not for lack of having said it or writing it. LFI has been practicing accommodation with Islamism and anti-Semitism for years – notably since its participation in 2019 in the demonstration organized by the Collective against Islamophobia in France (an organization subsequently dissolved under the law on separatism). The latest accommodation dates back to the end of August, when the LFI Summer Universities were proud to welcome the rapper Medine, Dieudonné’s “quenelle” companion, and author, just a few days before his visit to the said universities, with an anti-Semitic play on words worthy of those of Jean-Marie Le Pen in his time (the singer had described the essayist Rachel Khan as ResKhanpée).
But there were still many voters on the left who convinced themselves that these were so many isolated slip-ups, tactical winks, even “clumsiness”; or that only the social matter mattered. By the atrocity and scale of the massacres that it methodically worked to minimize or put into perspective, the official reaction of La France insoumise will have shaken off many voters of good will. It is still too early to know how much. But this time, Jean-Luc Mélenchon will not be able to count on the short memory of public opinion nor on the permanent zapping of the news to practice his policy of intermittent scandals. Georges Kuzmanovic, national secretary for international affairs between 2013 and 2018, reports having often heard him defend a curious precept: “The people are like a slate. Every six months, erase everything and write this What do you want”. This time, his fault is historic, indelible.
Finally, those who believe they are saving honor (and furniture) by distancing themselves from the LFI position without having the courage to break are seriously mistaken. Since the creation of Nupes, the Socialist Party has been hostage to its panicked fear of no longer existing politically or electorally without agreements with LFI. This fear leads him to accept crossings of red lines which would be judged irrevocable if they were pushed to the right. Since October 7, it has been even worse. The outraged reactions of the leaders of the PS only underline their lack of spirit of consequences: when it is this serious, we do not compromise. Their confusing explanations (“change things from the inside”, “prepare a Nupes without Mélenchon”…) seem to perfectly illustrate Camus’ quote: “There is always a philosophy for the lack of courage”.
There will be a before and after October 7, 2023 for the French left.