As his detractors could expect, Jean-Luc Mélenchon does not intend to make a mea culpa. At a meeting in Roubaix on Wednesday evening, the leader of LFI brushed off accusations of anti-Semitism, a few hours after the University of Lille banned the conference on Palestine that he was to hold there this Thursday with activist Rima Hassan .
“I pity the president of the university because what he did is shameful,” he said, castigating the “cowards who are not capable of defending freedom.”
LFI maintains the conference in another location
The university announced at midday in a press release that “the conditions are no longer met to guarantee the serenity of the debates” due to the “worrying” rise in international tensions after “the military escalation that occurred on the 13th and 14th April in the Middle East”, in reference to the drone and missile attack launched by Iran against Israel. “We will not be silent. The conference by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Rima Hassan will be held in Lille this Thursday, April 18. Communication about the new location will be sent to those registered,” replied LFI.
LFI has made the denunciation of Israeli operations in Gaza one of the main axes of its campaign for the European elections of June 9, defended through meetings and conferences by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “It was enough for PS Jérôme Guedj to denounce the logo of the student association and for a Macronist MP (Violette Spillebout) to call for disorder to destroy academic freedom,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon scathed on X.
Since the start of the week, several elected officials, including the president (LR) of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, have called for the event to be banned. “This political meeting, disguised as a conference with anti-Zionist overtones, had no place in a French university,” he reacted on Wednesday.
A logo at the heart of criticism
Subject of criticism, in particular, the logo of the organizing student association “Free Palestine”, which shows a territory encompassing Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. A way of “denying the existence of the State of Israel” for some, including the head of the socialist list in the European elections, Raphaël Glucksmann.
Wednesday evening, in front of some 1,200 people gathered in Roubaix, according to the organizers, Jean-Luc Mélenchon pretended to wonder: “Why at 70 years old, did I become anti-Semitic? “. “He is anti-Semitic for winking at working-class neighborhoods,” he added, aping his adversaries. “It’s racist to think like that!” » “We do not confuse a Jew and an Israeli assassin warrior,” he launched to an ovation, also ensuring not to confuse “Muslims and terrorists”, before insisting that LFI is “the ballot Peace “.