The tension rises a little more between the leader of the La France Insoumise party and the executive. Jean-Luc Mélenchon should be the subject of a complaint filed by the government in the coming days. In question, its parallel between the president of the University of Lille, Regis Bordet, and the Nazi Adolf Eichmann, after the cancellation of his meeting with the LFI candidate for the European elections, Rima Hassan, within the establishment, on April 18.
“I didn’t do anything, said Eichmann. I only obeyed the law as it was in my country. So they say that they obey the law and they implement immoral measures which are not justified by anything or anyone,” he declared during an improvised meeting in the street.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon then justified himself by citing The Origins of Totalitarianism by the philosopher and political scientist Hannah Arendt, to explain that the president of the university had “behaved in this logic of the propagation of evil”.
“Public insult”
Questioned on BFMTV on Sunday evening, Sylvie Retailleau estimated that “the words of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who called the president (of the University of Lille) a Nazi, are a public insult”: “My ministry will file a complaint for public insult in front of a public official,” she announced. “The majority of debates and conferences are held in our universities where the presidents are there to ensure everyone’s safety,” she added. “Why was the conference canceled at the University of Lille, after having allowed it, because there were also demonstrations that were going to take place and the president (of the university, Editor’s note) had the information that there was a risk to public order”, according to her.
His ministry specified to AFP that “19 LFI conferences have been held since the start of the year in French higher education establishments under the supervision of the ministry” and that “three have been canceled due to the risk of disruption to the public order, three were unauthorized for the same reasons or for non-compliance with the internal framework of the university.
“A diversion”
Early this Monday, March 29, Jean-Luc Mélenchon responded to this accusation through his account on the social network don’t think he is. Otherwise I would say it without fear of your complaints. I denounced the example of his cowardice which leads to evil as described by Hannah Arendt”, he asserts.
In an interview with Opinion Sunday, the president of the University of Lille Régis Bordet for his part affirmed that “the office of the Minister of Higher Education and Research, the rectorate and the prefecture (have) contacted them to find out about the “At no time was there any desire on their part to influence the decision,” he said.
In the political class, Jean-Luc Mélenchon received little support. The founder of France Insoumise had, on the contrary, been widely criticized for these remarks. “It’s indefensible, what Jean-Luc Mélenchon said, indefensible,” denounced the national secretary of the Communist Party (PCF) Fabien Roussel, believing that the rebellious leader was “discredited.”
Furthermore, in an interview with L’Express, Yariv Mozer, director of the documentary “Adolf Eichmann: The Devil’s Confessions”, estimated Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s comparison between the president of the University of Lille and the Nazi war criminal “insane”, adding that it reveals his ignorance of Arendt’s work.