In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a French far-left politician. He’s best known for founding the party La France Insoumise (LFI, “Unsubmissive France”) while demanding submission from his own movement to himself and worldwide submission to authoritarian dictators and their invasions.

Mélenchon received his early political education in the Organisation communiste internationaliste, a Trotskyist-Lambertist communist 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 (“Unsubmissive” or “Unbowed” France), a “movement” easy for anyone to join. But it also means that unlike a classic party with delegates and internal democracy, the real decisions are in the hands of… a politburo troika.

As the Socialist Party collapsed, LFI captured much of its electorate but still allied with them (and with Greens and Communists) under NUPES and later NFP.

The ideological continuity is clear, with some tensions when other parties feel overshadowed by Mélenchon’s role.

Born in Tangier, Morocco, Mélenchon also describes himself as a “Maghrébin européen” and a voice of the younger electorate, shaped by North African immigration. His project is not merely a change of government, but a regime change — “Sixth Republic”, a “New France” and “créolisation”, a refounding of the country around the voters he hopes to appeal to.

He even borrowed the “grand remplacement” theory as a good thing, even commenting that he “can’t survive when there are only blond-haired, blue-eyed people. It’s more than I can bear.”

He’s also racist towards, for instance, Lithuanians. In Mélenchon’s campist, dehumanizing worldview, they should just submit to Russia.

And of course by that same campism he doesn’t even care about actual Russians, either, only about defending Putin’s wars and regime. When opposition figure Boris Nemtsov was assassinated, Mélenchon called… Putin the main victim.

Of course, the new regime will need a new form of leader. In 2018, during a police raid on LFI’s headquarters, he infamously roared, “La République, c’est moi!”, “I am the Republic!”.

On October 7, 2023, as Hamas massacred random civilians and dragged hostages including children into Gaza, LFI described it as a mere “armed offensive by Palestinian forces” and Mélenchon refused to even acknowledge the terrorist nature of Hamas and its attack — just like Russia.

Mélenchon later dismissed France’s national march against antisemitism as a gathering for “unconditional supporters of the massacre in Gaza” and downplayed antisemitism in general, despite its worrying rise in France.

The controversy helped tear NUPES apart, with wide condemnation by the rest of the left. Far-right vatnik Alain Soral, on the other hand, with his two dozen sentences for antisemitism by now (and hiding in Moscow), was pleased.

LFI has flirted with antisemitism on other occasions. They published a caricature of Jewish broadcaster Cyril Hanouna widely condemned as echoing Nazi-era antisemitic propaganda. The party deleted it, but Mélenchon just told journalists asking him about it to “shut up”.

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 Israelis, but also for brutal torture and murders of Palestinians — started hunting down groups suspected of helping Israel, “one by one”.

Whether it’s the press or dissenters, Mélenchon’s instinct is to demand submission, so of course he often clashes with journalists, even getting fined for insulting France Info. His hatred of media also worried Reporters Without Borders.

Mélenchon seems to hate, despise or dehumanize a lot of people, actually, including his voters. He’s also a bit of a gauche caviar champagne socialist.

After finishing 3rd 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 Macron submitted: Macron remained president, Borne remained PM, and the French gave NUPES only 131 seats out of 577. The one who had to “submit or resign” was Mélenchon himself, who ended up with neither the PM post nor his MP seat.

Mélenchon is running for president again for 2027, with some polls placing him 2nd behind Marine Le Pen, with whom Mélenchon finds himself in agreement way too often.

A 2025 investigation on 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 purged from LFI party nominations and cast out as a traitor.

None of this should sound familiar, he’s a Trotskyist, not a Stalinist, remember.

One comrade has his favor though: Sophia Chikirou, reportedly his partner. She’s praised Hamas and attended vatnik events with Russian flags galore. Chikirou described possible Ukrainian EU or NATO membership as a “provocation” — Europeans must just submit to Russia’s whims.

Mélenchon has also spent years promoting Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. He promised both asylum, French citizenship and even state decorations. In 2022, Snowden reciprocated, in (broken) French, urging young voters to vote (implicitly for NUPES) and explicitly wishing Mélenchon and his NUPES alliance good luck.

That support from Moscow was hardly surprising, as Mélenchon’s record on Russia has been that of a loyal vatnik 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”.

The “putsch” in question:

Viktor Yanukovych

In March 2015, he 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 case of a full-scale Russian invasion.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Mélenchon insisted that the US and NATO were the aggressors. After the invasion, as is tradition, he formally condemned Putin’s attack, but he and his movement opposed sanctions, weapons deliveries and security commitments to Ukraine.

Speaking of weapons deliveries, Mélenchon complained when they finally stopped… to Russia.

At the European Parliament, on the resolution condemning Wagner Group crimes, only 27% of MEPs from LFI’s Left group voted in favor. On recognizing Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism…

…the figure fell to 14%. Both resolutions passed by large majorities. Mélenchon’s party denounces the far right and Nazis constantly, but refused to condemn the Nazi-themed war criminals of Wagner and the genocidal, terrorist state financing them. Cherchez l’erreur.

As a junior minister, Méluche welcomed Assad at Orly Airport, a protocol chore other officials had all refused.

His outright support for the dictator is worse: he even backed Russia’s 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 praised Maduro as the right successor. As he dismantled democracy and repressed protesters, Mélenchon continued endorsing him as Venezuela’s legitimate president.

Nicolás Maduro

And then there’s the People’s Republic of China. Méluche denounced Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, declared Taiwan an integral part of the PRC and was thanked by the PRC embassy. Apparently their communist symbols are enough to make him lose all concern for human rights.

For the LFI leader, it’s always about submission: the French should submit to Mélenchon, Ukraine to Russia, Taiwan to China, Syria to Assad, Venezuela to Maduro… Under Mélenchon’s communism rebranded as “révolution citoyenne” and rank campism dressed up as “non-alignment”, some comrades dictators are, as ever, more equal than others. And the leader of “Unsubmissive France” is eager to submit to them.

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