This Saturday, Catherine Nay decrypts the political and judicial tribulations of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Hello Catherine,
Hello Bernard, hello everyone.
The prosecution has required three months of suspended sentence and a fine of 8,000 euros against Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He was prosecuted for intimidating a magistrate and incurring up to 10 years in prison, a fine of 150,000 euros and 5 years of ineligibility. The judgment is reserved until 9 December. His lawyers pleaded the acquittal. He's doing well?
Who can believe that Jean-Luc Mélenchon will be condemned to prison, to ineligibility? Nevertheless, the images of the search last October, which are looped on TV, make an indelible mark on the character Mélenchon. His homeric anger, his cries of rage, his nose-to-nose with a policeman who barred the entrance to the seat of his movement, where a search was taking place. "My person is sacred, do not touch me! The Republic is me!"
"An almost pathological fury"
Imagine someone else as violent as him in such a situation, he would have been immediately sent into custody and immediate appearance. He was already a privileged person. It is true that it was heated to white: an hour earlier, police had pulled out of his sleep and he was not alone. And then they start to search his stuff, his phone, his computer ... it's very violent. Hence his almost pathological fury. The searches were carried out as part of two investigations: the financing of his presidential campaign and his parliamentary assistants in the European Parliament.
So you say that even if he was relaxed in December, the sequence is deadly for him.
Already 72% of French people say they have a bad opinion of him. And what a circus! As always, he spent the summer in Latin America, where he feels at home. Spanish is his second language. For a long time he was fascinated by Chavez, who financed the FARC of Colombia. A revolutionary who distributed to the people without counting and who led Venezuela to the economic disaster. today, a dictatorship. This time, his new idol is Mexican President Lopez Obrador, elected last December on his third attempt, an anti-establishment, anti-American candidate.
"He thinks himself, like Lula, a victim of political power"
And above all, he went to visit in his prison the former Brazilian president Lula, who is serving a sentence of 8 years and 10 months for corruption, because he thinks he is a victim of political power. Because he was afraid of this trial, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He firmly believes that justice in France is exploited by power against opponents and that all protestors are muzzled. "The little Lord (Macron), he is very violent like yours, the Bolsonaro," he said to the Brazilian Dilma Roussef. If he was relaxed, he will shout victory! A victory that he will attribute to his fight.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is still very popular among sympathizers of France Insoumise
How many are today? On the evening of the presidential election, with 19.5% of the vote, he missed the second round at 600,000 votes. In the evening, he did not accept these results. Then for the second round, he did not call for the rally of the left nor to counter the National Front [former National Rally, ed]. He did nothing of this capital and rejected everyone. In the legislative elections, France Insoumise garnered only 11% of the votes. But these 17 elected officials made noise like 100: they were the opposition. Jean-Luc Mélenchon dreamed of fury and noise, to bring down the people in the street. The "yellow vests" have arrived, but without him! And then to the Europeans, the catastrophe: 6.5% of the votes.
So maybe he needed this hustle and bustle to get back into the presidential race. But by attacking the symbols of the rule of law, we do not really know who he is. By force of outrage, of vociferations, one wonders if this actor is not the toy of a temperament too sanguine, because of its imbalance. He appears as a very fragile man, not a building land.