France's election winner is aggressively anti-German and anti-Semitic
France's voters have checked the advance of Marine Le Pen and the right-wing populists. But the left-wing victory winners are also bad and dangerous. Their leader openly incites against Germans and Jews to mobilize Muslim voters.
France has come from rain into a quagmire with this election. The voters have prevented the political march of the right-wing populists under Marine Le Pen, but clear majorities are no longer present. A government deadlock threatens, and the new left alliance is being led by shady populists. Not only the CDU elder and European politician Armin Laschet warns vehemently against the surprise winner, the left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his party La France insoumise. Laschet calls Mélenchon "crazy" and from a German perspective, just as bad as Le Pen. Mélenchon is "just as dangerous: Antisemit, anti-German, anti-European, pro-Russian", Laschet told the "Welt". Le Pen and Mélenchon are equally bad, they "don't care about each other - with the only exception that he is also an antisemite".
While the German Greens are still jubilating over the result with tweets (Ricarda Lang: "Thank you, France"), SPD foreign politician Michael Roth is just as appalled by Mélenchon as Laschet: "Mélenchon is a thorough anti-German. He does not differ in his anti-German and anti-European diatribes from Madame Le Pen. There is no reason to trust Mélenchon. He is an anti-European ideologue, a risk-taker", Roth told the "Tagesspiegel".
Above all, the Jewish communities in France are taking the electoral success of Mélenchon with horror. The famous Nazi hunters Beate and Serge Klarsfeld are warning urgently against Mélenchon. The Rabbi of the Synagogue La Victoire in Paris, Moshe Sebbag, advises young Jews to emigrate to Israel or to a safer country. The background: Mélenchon has systematically stirred up antisemitic sentiment for months to mobilize Muslim voters for the Left.
Anti-Semitic Campaign
Israel is seen by Mélenchon as a demonic evil, while Hamas is downplayed by him as a resistance movement. Mélenchon refuses to acknowledge the terror organization as such. The massacre of October 7th was described by Mélenchon's party as a reaction to the "escalation of the occupation policy". Mélenchon deliberately put Rima Hassan in the limelight as a leading politician of his party. The 32-year-old Franco-Palestinian is the spearhead of his anti-Semitic campaign and prepares aggressive propaganda against everything Jewish, against the Jewish umbrella organization Crif, its alleged "Zionist lobby", and above all against Israel. Mélenchon took part in Arab-organized demonstrations against alleged "Islamophobia" in Paris, where bearded men shouted "Allahu akbar" and adorned themselves with Jewish stars, as if they were the persecuted of the present. He staged his campaign at times as an anti-Israel demonstration and declared that he was proud of "the people" who "rise up against the genocide in Gaza".
"Melenchon successfully attempted to mobilize voter bases in maghrebin and Arabic-speaking quarters, where resentments against Israel and Jews are prevalent. According to studies, 62 to 74 percent of Muslim voters already voted for the Left in the European elections. Now, it is believed that even more did so. In France, there are over 4.2 million Muslim voters, making up around 10 percent of the entire electorate. Their votes, according to analyses, significantly contributed to the strengthening of the Left - Melenchon's calculation of mobilizing voters through an anti-Jewish campaign has thus proven successful.
Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy is outraged and calls Melenchon an anti-Semite and "enemy of the Republic" in a piece on X. He hopes that French President Emmanuel Macron will not appoint him as Premier. The French Social Democrats, who are part of the Left Front, should sever their ties with Melenchon, demanded Lévy. Macron has ruled out cooperation with La France insoumise. Melenchon is so controversial within the Left Alliance that the four parties could not agree on a common candidate for a new Prime Minister. Work on a proposal for a new Prime Minister is only just beginning.
"Nobody wants to be German"
Melenchon, in addition to his anti-Semitism, also practices a demonstrative hatred of Germany. He has even written about his Germany hatred in a book titled "The Bismarck Herring - the German Poison," which is filled with anti-German resentments. He blames Germany for all sorts of evils: Berlin has created a "germanized Europe" to oppress others. Germany is a "monster," and it is responsible for Europe's environmental pollution, as well as the plight of French farmers. In 2014, he attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Twitter with the words: "Speak up, Frau Merkel. France is free."
However, Melenchon also finds Germany in general deceitful and dreadful: "The German, that's a model for people who don't care about life," he sneers. "Nobody wants to be German. They are poorer than the average, they die younger than others, and they have no children." The German reunification was an "illegal annexation" of the GDR, Merkel should have "thrown it in the trash" much earlier, and when a German DFB team is eliminated from a football tournament, Melenchon celebrates on social media, expressing "great joy." In short: Melenchon combines an aggressive left-wing populism with brutal resentments against Jews and Germans."
- Despite Emmanuel Macron's efforts to prevent cooperation with Jean-Luc Mélenchon due to his controversial stance on Jews and Germans, Mélenchon's anti-Semitic campaign was successful in mobilizing a significant number of Muslim voters, which significantly contributed to the strengthening of the left alliance in France.
- The anti-Semitic sentiments of Mélenchon, as displayed in his support for Hamas and his denigration of Israel, have led to warnings from prominent Jewish figures in France, such as Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, who urge young Jews to consider emigrating to Israel or safer countries due to the potential rise of antisemitism.
- In addition to his anti-Semitic views, Mélenchon also exhibits demonstrative hostility towards Germany, as evidenced by his book "The Bismarck Herring - the German Poison" and his frequent tweets criticizing Angela Merkel and the German people, fueling tensions in German-French relations.
