The Many Submissions of Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Vatnik Soup, Desk Russie, russian desk,
With the kind permission of Vatnik Soup, a project dedicated to exposing Kremlin propaganda and Russian influence networks, we are republishing their sharp portrait of Jean-Luc “Méluche” Mélenchon, a candidate in France’s upcoming presidential election. Best known for founding La France insoumise (LFI, “Unsubmissive France” or “France Unbowed”), Mélenchon demands submission from his own party to himself — and from the rest of the world to the worst dictators and their invasions.
His political career
Méluche received his early political education in the Organisation communiste internationaliste, a Trotskyist group known for secrecy, rigid discipline and entryism. Lionel Jospin was also a member, and both later joined the French Socialist Party.
Mélenchon was elected to the Senate and was a junior minister (2000–2002) in Jospin’s government. He left the Socialist Party in 2008, co-founded the Left Party, then the Left Front alliance with the Communists, and ran as its presidential candidate in 2012. He was also an MEP from 2009 to 2017.
In 2016, Mélenchon founded La France insoumise, a “movement” easy for anyone to join. But it also means that, unlike a classic party with delegates and internal democracy, the important decisions are in the hands of… a politburo troika.
As the Socialist Party collapsed, LFI captured much of its electorate while still allying with what remained of it — along with the Greens and Communists — under NUPES and later the New Popular Front.
The ideological continuity is clear, with some tensions when other parties feel overshadowed by Mélenchon’s dominant role.
The new France
Born in Tangier, Morocco, Mélenchon describes himself as a “European Maghrebi” and as the voice of a younger electorate shaped by North African immigration. His project is not merely a change of government, but a change of regime and a remaking of the country — a “Sixth Republic”, a “New France” and “creolization”: a refounding of the nation around the voters he hopes to appeal to.
He even embraced the “great replacement” theory as a good thing, declaring: “I can’t survive when there are only blond-haired, blue-eyed people. It’s more than I can bear.”
Of course, the new regime will need a new kind of leader. In 2018, during a police raid on LFI’s headquarters, Méluche the First roared: “La République, C’EST MOI !” — “I AM the Republic!”
After finishing third in the 2022 presidential election, Mélenchon commanded the French to “elect” him prime minister. If Macron objected, Mélenchon proclaimed, he would have to “se soumettre ou se démettre” — submit or resign.
In the end, neither the French nor the head of state submitted: Emmanuel Macron remained president, Élisabeth Borne remained prime minister, and the French gave NUPES only 131 seats out of 577. The one who had to “submit or resign” was Méluche himself, who ended up as neither prime minister nor an MP.
Incorrigible, Jean-Luc is running for president again in 2027, with some polls placing him second behind Marine Le Pen, with whom he is oddly enough often on the same page.
The submission of the Unsubmissive
A 2025 investigation into LFI, based on more than 200 interviews, described a movement governed through loyalty tests, humiliation, surveillance and fear. The chief comrade demands blind devotion from his followers, and anyone who questions him is denied LFI party nominations and cast out as a traitor.
Whether it’s internal dissenters or the press, Mélenchon’s instinct is to demand submission. He therefore often clashes with journalists, even getting fined for insulting France Info. His hatred of the media has even worried Reporters Without Borders.
Mélenchon actually seems to hate, despise or dehumanize a lot of people, including his own activists and voters.
One of them does have his favor, though: Sophia Chikirou, reportedly his partner. She’s praised Hamas and attended rallies with Russian flags galore. Chikirou described possible Ukrainian membership of the EU or NATO as a “provocation” — Europeans must just submit to the Kremlin’s every whim.
Hamas and antisemitism
On October 7, 2023, Hamas massacred civilians and took children hostage; LFI described this as a mere “armed offensive by Palestinian forces”, and Mélenchon refused to acknowledge the terrorist nature of Hamas and its attack — just like the Kremlin.
Rima Hassan, an LFI MEP, is awaiting trial on charges of glorifying terrorism. She also rejoiced when Hamas — infamous not just for its attacks against Israeli civilians, but also for the brutal torture and murders of Palestinians — started hunting down groups in Gaza suspected of helping Israel, “one by one”.
Mélenchon also dismissed France’s national march against antisemitism as a gathering of “unconditional supporters of the massacre in Gaza”, while downplaying antisemitism more generally despite its worrying rise in France.
The controversy helped tear NUPES apart, drawing widespread condemnation from the rest of the left. The red-brown vatnik Alain Soral, on the other hand, was pleased. He collects Nazi mugs and convictions for antisemitism and is hiding in Moscow.
LFI has flirted with antisemitism on other occasions. The movement published a caricature of Jewish broadcaster Cyril Hanouna, widely condemned as echoing Nazi-era propaganda. The party deleted it, but Mélenchon just told journalists asking him about it to “shut up”.
Support for Putin
Fear of the Russians is absurd! They are natural partners. — Jean-Luc Mélenchon, March 10, 2019
Mélenchon has spent years promoting Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. He promised both political asylum, French citizenship and even state decorations. In 2022, Snowden reciprocated, urging young voters to vote, in French — implicitly for NUPES — and explicitly wishing Mélenchon and his alliance good luck.
That support from Moscow was hardly surprising: Mélenchon has been a loyal vatnik defending wars of aggression by Putin’s Russia for years. When Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, he described the invasion as mere “protective measures” against a “putschist” Ukrainian government, supposedly influenced by “neo-Nazis” — a classic Kremlin narrative.
In March 2015, Méluche welcomed the prospect of Ukraine’s disintegration, calling it a country that “has such trouble being one” and adding: “Good things come to those who wait.” He expected Ukraine to last “less than a week” in the event of a full-scale Russian invasion.
At the European Parliament, on the resolution condemning Wagner Group crimes, only 27% of MEPs from the Left group to which LFI belongs voted in favor. On recognizing Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, the figure fell to 14%.
Both resolutions still passed by large majorities, the question should hardly be controversial: after brazenly lying to Macron about it, Putin himself admitted that he had “fully financed” the private military group with Russian state funds. Mélenchon’s party constantly denounces the far right, but refused to condemn the Nazi-themed war criminals of the Wagner Group and the genocidal, terrorist state financing them. Cherchez l’erreur (Spot the contradiction).
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Mélenchon insisted that the US and NATO were the aggressors.
After the invasion, he formally condemned Putin’s attack, but he and his movement opposed sanctions, weapons deliveries and security guarantees for Ukraine. Speaking of weapons deliveries, Mélenchon complained when they finally stopped… towards Russia.
And Méluche’s message to Lithuanians was “well, they can go fuck themselves”. In Mélenchon’s campist, anti-Western, dehumanizing worldview, they should just… submit to Russia.
Anti-Western campism
And of course, that same campism means he doesn’t care either about the fate of Russians themselves, only about defending the wars and regime of the dictator Putin and his oligarchs. When opposition figure Boris Nemtsov was assassinated, Mélenchon was worried about… the tenant of the Kremlin, the “first political victim” of the murder.
The only Russian “opposition figures” who find favor with Méluche are those who… oppose nothing at all, at least not Russian imperialism or its wars. In 2018, for example, Mélenchon met Sergei Udaltsov, a supporter of Crimea’s annexation who would later even support the invasion of 2022. Then there’s Alexei Sakhnin, whom LFI welcomed to France as an antiwar dissident, but who also rejects the return of Donbas to Ukraine. Yet Ukraine’s territorial integrity, let’s not forget it, had been unequivocally recognized by Putin himself in 2004, when he ratified the Treaty on the Russian-Ukrainian Border.
As a junior minister, Méluche welcomed Assad, Putin’s ally, at Orly Airport, a protocol chore all the other officials had refused. His outright support for the dictator is worse still: he even backed the Russian military intervention that saved the regime and led to massive civilian casualties.
On Venezuela, Mélenchon called Hugo Chávez’s revolution a “source of inspiration” and presented Maduro, another Putin ally, as the legitimate successor. As Maduro dismantled democracy, repressed protesters, tortured opponents and rigged elections, Mélenchon continued to recognize him as Venezuela’s elected leader.
And then there’s the People’s Republic of China. Méluche denounced Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, proclaiming the sovereign island an integral part of the PRC. The PRC regime that never ruled Taiwan, but dreams of conquering it one day, responded with public thanks from its embassy. Apparently, the Maoist state’s communist symbols are enough to make Jean-Luc suddenly lose all concern for human rights or for preventing wars.
Submission
For Jean-Luc Mélenchon, it’s always about submission: the French must submit to him, Russians to Putin, Ukraine to Russia, Taiwan to China, Syria to Assad and Venezuela to Maduro.
Under Mélenchon’s communism rebranded as “citizens’ revolution”, and anti-Westernism dressed up as “non-alignment”, some comrade dictators are, as ever, more equal than others.
And the leader of “Unsubmissive France” is only too eager to submit to them.