The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, victim for years of numerous anti-Semitic threats for which she filed several complaints, accused, Monday October 23, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of having put a “new target in the back” when he criticized his supportive visit to Israel this weekend. She said she was “very shocked”.

The day before, the leader of La France insoumise (LFI) once again caused trouble because of a message posted on National Assembly, the same day. Commenting on a video showing the rally organized by the National Collective for a Just and Lasting Peace between Palestinians and Israelis, Place de la République, he wrote: “Here is France. Meanwhile, Ms. Braun-Pivet camps in Tel Aviv to encourage the massacre. Not in the name of the French people! »

Terms which have allowed the founder of LFI to fuel, once again, the anti-Semitism trial against him. Ms. Braun-Pivet said, on France Inter, that the leader had not “chosen” his words “by chance”, in particular the term “camper”, a reference according to her to concentration camps.

“I don’t understand why it’s the Jewish identity that stands out: I’m French, I’m not practicing, I’m not a believer, but some people only see that,” she lamented. When I read certain tweets, when I directly receive threatening letters, of course I feel in danger, when I cannot leave my house without police protection. »

A public outcry

Mr. Mélenchon’s message sparked general condemnation from Macronists, with ministers Marc Fesneau and Oliver Dussopt evoking in unison a “tweet of shame.” It was also an outcry on the right. “Collaboration, eighty years later,” wrote on X the president (Les Républicains, LR) of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez.

On the left, the socialist deputy for Tarn-et-Garonne Valérie Rabault considered that “these accusations” were “abject”. The PS mayor of Montpellier, Michaël Delafosse, denounced the “worst innuendoes that are as unworthy as they are irresponsible”.

“Here is the subliminal message of Jean-Luc Mélenchon: to designate the Jews as the party of foreigners and of war,” said CRIF president Yonathan Arfi, noting “anti-Semitic rhetoric,” when Licra pointed out “electoral anti-Semitism.”

Before Mr. Mélenchon, several figures from the left had denounced Ms. Braun-Pivet’s trip to Israel, from Saturday evening to Sunday evening, for a “solidarity” trip with the country devastated by Hamas attacks on October 7. On Sunday, she declared that France “fully supports Israel”, adding that, while it is necessary to “preserve” the civilian populations of Gaza, “nothing must prevent” the Jewish state “from defending itself” in the war that opposes Palestinian Hamas. “There is an attacker and there are attacked,” she said of the conflict.

Reinforced divisions

The coordinator of LFI, Manuel Bompard, criticized a “major political mistake”, specifying that his movement intends to “demand accountability on this subject”, Monday October 23, at the National Assembly, where a debate on the situation in Middle East. For his part, the leader of the Socialist Party (PS), Olivier Faure, criticized the president of the National Assembly for having gone to Israel with the president of the LR party, Eric Ciotti, and the LR deputy of this constituency of French people abroad Meyer Habib. These two right-wing elected officials are “hawks, on a line without nuance”, judged Mr. Faure, recalling that Ms. Braun-Pivet had spoken of “unconditional support for Israel”, in the wake of the Hamas attack, on October 7.

The left, however, once again displayed its divisions on the subject on Sunday. LFI came in force to demand an “immediate end to military operations against the Gaza Strip” during the Parisian rally organized at Place de la République. If the Palestinian flags rubbed shoulders with those of LFI or the New Anticapitalist Party, the PS, the French Communist Party and Europe Ecologie-Les Verts had decided not to respond to the call.

The text of the collective calling for demonstrations had failed to qualify Hamas as “terrorist”, contenting itself with condemning “war crimes”, in line with the semantics used by Mr. Mélenchon and his inner circle since the abuses committed by Palestinian organization, October 7. Sunday, on France 3, Mr. Faure assured that his party had not “been invited to participate in [its] editorial staff”. A defection that Mr. Bompard regretted, considering it “a shame” that the “partners of the Nupes [New Ecological and Social Popular Union] are not responding,” perceiving there as “attempts at division.” Coalition members are “isolating themselves,” he said, five days after the Socialists’ decision to suspend their participation in the left-wing alliance’s work.