Medina: the leader of the Renaissance deputies speaks of an "anti-Semitic" left

The invitation of the rapper Médine to the summer universities of Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV) and La France insoumise does not pass with the leader of the deputies of the presidential majority. Sylvain Maillard accused, this Sunday, August 27, part of the left of being “very clearly communitarian, woke […], anti-Semitic”.

“We have tried everything” to convince Europe Écologie-Les Verts and La France insoumise to cancel their invitation to a “homophobic, anti-Semitic, Brotherhood” character, regretted Sylvain Maillard, who nevertheless distinguishes the “communitarian” choice of LFI from one side and the “bad strategy” of the Greens on the other.

“I believe that there is a very clearly communitarian left, a woke left, a left that is no longer a left, an anti-Semitic left, yes, very clearly”, denounced the Macronist deputy. Sylvain Maillard, who succeeded Aurore Bergé as president of the Renaissance group in July, accuses LFI of wanting to attract the vote of the “Muslim community” through the invitation to Medina, and adds that the Insoumis “imagine a Muslim community that recognize themselves in the struggle of the Palestinians”.

A time president of the National Assembly’s study group on anti-Semitism, Sylvain Maillard also points to “the behavior of anti-Semitic people” at LFI and “a part” of its elected officials when they invited, in June 2022, the ex-British Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, himself accused of anti-Semitism.

Since the start of the controversy over the invitation to Medina, LFI has rejected these accusations of complacency towards anti-Semitism and denounced a “cabal of the far right”. Jean-Luc Mélenchon himself assured that Medina “is not racist”.

Applauded among environmentalists, acclaimed at La France insoumise, the rapper again denied any anti-Semitism during summer universities. “Not only am I not anti-Semitic, but in addition I have been fighting anti-Semitism for twenty years at the closest, on the ground”, he repeated during a debate on Saturday in the Drôme with the president of the deputies LFI , Mathilde Panot.