Antisemitism should have no place in a genuinely progressive movement. As one socialist great, August Bebel, famously warned, “antisemitism is the socialism of fools,” a sneer at workers that scapegoats Jewish people instead of confronting real injustices. We on the left pride ourselves on solidarity and justice for all, which means rejecting hatred wherever it appears. That’s why we cannot look away when a prominent left leader like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, once a hero to many of us, repeatedly crosses the line into rhetoric soaked in conspiracy and old antisemitic tropes. Mélenchon has built a reputation as a tireless fighter against the right and the elites. Still, his record shows a troubling pattern of dog-whistles and distortions that hurt Jewish communities and damage our shared cause.
Mélenchon’s lapses date back years. In 2013, during France’s Cyprus bailout crisis, he attacked Socialist Minister Pierre Moscovici on air, saying Moscovici had “stopped thinking in French” and was now speaking only “in the language of international finance.” French media immediately noted that this “evoked an anti-Semitic cliché through the image of the Jewish banker.” By framing criticism of financial policy as an implied moral failing of a French-Jewish minister, he unwittingly unleashed a classic trope. (He later insisted he hadn’t known Moscovici was Jewish, but the damage was done.) Even under siege, Mélenchon doubled down on such language rather than apologizing. As leftists, we understand that anger at global finance can be legitimate. But we do know the name of that very tactic: blaming problems on Jews. Progressives should never slip into that trap.
Over the years, Mélenchon’s remarks about France’s Jewish institutions also caused alarm. In 2014, he blasted CRIF (the umbrella group of French Jewish organizations), telling a rally, “We’ve had enough of CRIF” and insisting “we do not believe that any people are superior to another.” Critics pointed out that he seemed to be scolding Jews for asserting their identity, precisely the “chosen people” language he publicly rejected. He went further by denouncing French Jews who support Israel as effectively alien. After a Gaza War protest that saw synagogues attacked, Mélenchon bizarrely defended the rioters as Arab “martyrs” and described Jewish protesters as “citizens who decided to rally in front of the embassy of a foreign country or serve its flag, weapon in hand.” For context, a pro-Palestinian protest in Sarcelles, France, escalated into a violent antisemitic riot. The unrest led to attacks on Jewish and non-Jewish businesses, with clashes between rioters, police, and members of the Jewish Defense League who were defending a local synagogue. To be clear, this is not a defense of the Jewish Defense League, which has far-right leanings. Still, it is worth questioning Mélenchon's remarks. One does not need to be a member of the Jewish Defense League to want to defend their local place of worship from destruction. Especially since protestors burnt down a kosher food mart during the same protest, if anything, these protests pushed people closer to the Jewish Defense League. In this light, this sounded like labeling concerned Jews as traitors, a deeply hurtful insinuation. One does not call one’s neighbors “traitors” to another's flag without consequence. Communities remember.
By 2020, his words had repeatedly drawn comparisons to old blood libel themes. In a televised interview, he even mused, “I don’t know if Jesus was on a cross, but he was put there by his people.” That line played straight into the malicious “Jewish deicide” myth that has stoked pogroms and hate for centuries. The Simon Wiesenthal Center protested immediately, warning that such imagery “fueled violence across Europe, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust.” Right-wing racists may traffic in this dehumanizing myth. Still, it’s shocking to hear it from the mouth of a leftist leader. And when journalists questioned him in 2021 about French far-right figure Éric Zemmour’s anti-immigrant stance, Mélenchon bizarrely blamed it on “Jewish tradition” being “opposed to assimilation,” a remark condemned by people across the political spectrum, from Macron’s party to even his one-time ally Pierre Moscovici, as blatantly antisemitic. A supposed champion of inclusivity had unintentionally wrapped himself in a cloak of ethnic conspiracy.
It gets worse. Mélenchon has at times veered into full-blown conspiracy theorizing. Even the founder of the anti-conspiracy group Conspiracy Watch noted that while Mélenchon isn’t a fringe “complotist,” he has on occasion “abetted antisemitic conspiracy theories,” by downplaying or excusing them. A dramatic example came in 2021: on France Inter radio, he ominously predicted that in the final week of a presidential campaign, there would be “a serious incident or a murder” planned to “point fingers at Muslims and…invent a civil war.” He cited real cases like the Toulouse school shooting and a Champs-Élysées attack, suggesting these might have been orchestrated events. These words were widely denounced. Francis Kalifat, then head of CRIF, called Mélenchon’s suggestion “an obscene attack on the memory of the victims” and a descent into “conspiracy theories…reaching rock bottom.” In other words, Mélenchon was tossing gasoline on fears and divisions, rather than soothing them, and it was coming from the leader of the radical left. That moment should have been a wake-up call: conspiratorial thinking undermines our solidarity. Progressives believe in reason and evidence, not secret cabals plotting society’s collapse.
None of this is mere history. During the October 2023 Gaza crisis, Mélenchon’s language helped normalize alarming sentiments. When Hamas slaughtered civilians in Israel, most political leaders, including many on the left, quickly condemned the massacre of innocents. Mélenchon did not. He and La France Insoumise initially issued a statement describing the Hamas attack only as “an armed offensive by Palestinian forces,” pointedly avoiding the word “terrorism.” He took it further by tweeting that “all the violence unleashed against Israel and in the Gaza Strip only produces [more violence].” Phrases like “both sides are to blame” resonate as a refusal to acknowledge Jewish suffering. This equivocation enraged many. Even Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne called his stance “revolting” and warned that the left’s anti-Israel posturing often becomes “a way of masking a form of antisemitism.” Borne spoke about Mélenchon’s camp when she said it, a rare moment of cross-spectrum clarity that progressives should heed.
More deeply, Mélenchon’s social-media output during that war stoked conspiracy-like rumors. He retweeted a debunked claim that Israel “chose to massacre families” by bombing a Gaza hospital, a message fact-checkers and even his party leaders later called false. And after a large pro-Palestinian rally in Paris, he posted a photo with the caption “This is France,” implying the crowd represented France, and then attacked Yaël Braun-Pivet, the Jewish president of the National Assembly, for “camping out in Tel Aviv to encourage a massacre” in Gaza. In other words, he accused her, because she visited Israel, of orchestrating more bloodshed. Braun-Pivet, a pillar of democracy who has herself been targeted by antisemites, rejected his words. She said it simply put “another target” on her back. At that point, Mélenchon claimed he was “not policing words,” but to many it looked like a thinly veiled whisper of the old “dual loyalty” canard. These were not isolated slip-ups; they fit a pattern. Antisemitic incidents were already surging across France, and it took real courage to stand firmly against them.
Instead, Mélenchon’s equivocation signaled to his followers that outrage against Jews could be justified as merely anti-occupation rhetoric. Even within his movement, some voices have pulled back. Last spring, Mélenchon wrote on his blog that antisemitism in France was merely “residual” and essentially absent from pro-Palestinian marches. This came as news to French Jews. In reality, violent antisemitic acts were skyrocketing, reports noted a 284% jump in assaults on Jews in one year. Jewish students report fearing the far left more than the far right, 90% say they’ve experienced antisemitism at school. Again support for Palestine during this time is necassary but denying the rise in antisemitism caused by opposition to Israel is at best ignorance. Leaders, like Mélenchon, need to know this to stop antisemitism and to make the movement more inclusive. In that climate, Mélenchon’s cavalier dismissal felt like a slap in the face. When his colleagues asked him to clarify his stance on Hamas and the hospital bombing, he dug in instead of listening. This is not leadership; it’s dogmatism in a crisis.
Unsurprisingly, other progressive leaders have begun to break with him. After June 2024’s elections, Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure and Green co-leader Marine Tondelier said, “Jean-Luc Mélenchon will not be France’s next prime minister.” Perhaps more tellingly, Socialist MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, a figure on the left and head of the NUPES list, stated flatly that he “strongly opposes Mélenchon’s candidacy and the antisemitic atmosphere in France, partly attributed to him.” These are fellow leftists, not right-wing opponents. When people like Glucksmann speak out, they see too many people making excuses for what Mélenchon has said. To those still defending him, consider this: by platforming or tolerating these remarks, you undermine the credibility of our entire movement. We cannot preach justice against one hate while disregarding another.
It is not only possible but necessary to criticize the Israeli government’s policies and to defend the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. Justice for Palestinians is a core progressive value, and we must continue to speak out against occupation, siege, and displacement. But those urgent criticisms must never spill into antisemitism. When a movement leader like Mélenchon traffics in tropes or suggests conspiracies involving Jewish figures, it poisons the message and undermines the cause. It hands ammunition to those eager to discredit the left, painting our solidarity as selective and our critique as thinly veiled bigotry. Coming from someone in a prominent leadership role, this behavior is morally wrong and politically destructive. It alienates Jewish allies, shifts the focus away from Palestinian suffering, and hands our opponents the moral high ground. Suppose we want to build a truly liberatory and inclusive movement. In that case, we cannot afford to make the error of confusing anti-Zionism with antisemitism, nor can we allow our leaders to do so with impunity.
The harm is real. Jewish communities in France have suffered appalling violence in recent years. Countless families wonder why the left, a historical ally against racism, now sometimes seems to say their pain isn’t so urgent. When a leftist leader uses language that echoes faintly of anti-Jewish stereotypes or sinister plots, Jewish colleagues and neighbors feel betrayed. They think: Who speaks for us? Solidarity means everyone is protected. We expect our leaders to keep our movement safe and inclusive. Instead, Mélenchon’s words have often done the opposite. He has tied our highest ideals to threads of prejudice. That cannot stand if we genuinely want a just society.
We can and must do better. Progressives must set a higher standard for our champions. It is possible, and necessary, to be passionately pro-Palestinian without slipping into anti-Jewish rhetoric. We criticize colonialism and power structures, but we do not degrade an entire people. We protest injustice, but we do not excuse lies or dehumanization. “Antisemitism is the socialism of fools,” reminds us that hatred of Jews is always a shortcut for those who refuse to tackle real inequality. If we ever forget that, we betray everything we stand for.
It falls to all of us, party members, voters, journalists, and scholars, to hold Mélenchon and others accountable. To excuse him when he makes these remarks is to tell Jewish progressives that their safety and dignity can be sidelined for political convenience. Instead, let us affirm clearly: Judaism is a faith and culture, not a conspiracy, and Jewish people are not the enemy. If a leader veers into coded antisemitism, we call it out. If former colleagues are labeled as “traitors,” we defend them. If violence spikes, we stand in solidarity with the victims. This is not weakness, it is true strength.
The bigger picture is that every time the left excuses such rhetoric, it chips away at its moral foundation. Other democrats see it, and our message weakens. Critics on the right will point to these lapses as “proof” that the left harbors haters, just as they have done so eagerly in the past. We cannot let that happen. Instead, we should reiterate our core promise: to oppose every form of bigotry. We should reaffirm that progress means not only economic and social rights but also cultural respect and safety for minorities, including Jews. Indeed, the French left has a proud tradition of fighting the far right, but we must also police our ranks. Progressivism without accountability is hypocritical.
In the end, standing up to antisemitism and all racism is part of what progressivism means. If we believe in liberty, equality, and fraternity, then our fight must extend to protecting Jewish neighbors from slander and violence. Let us remember the cost of staying silent: every insult and insinuation chips away at the unity we need to build a fairer world. We owe it to each other to demand honesty and empathy from our leaders. The French left has shown it can confront powerful interests and usher in change. It must show that it can also confront prejudice within its ranks.
We can do better, and we must. Only then can we honestly say that the left truly stands for everyone’s liberation, not just a few chosen causes. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has done much to galvanize voters, but no reason, not even the fight for Palestine, justifies empowering someone who traffics in the very hatreds we oppose. Progressives must raise the bar: if we tolerate anything less than unequivocal rejection of antisemitism, we betray the movements we built together. The principle is simple: hatred divides, solidarity unites. As Bebel’s saying teaches us, real socialism belongs to those who refuse to pit worker against worker based on faith or heritage. Let that lesson be our guide. We can and must do better.
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