Mr. Mélenchon then said: "If you do not decide, remember that you will no longer decide. Because the one who is in power, like the one who preceded him, started the war in Mali, and you will not haven't heard of, after we voted once, for nine years".

In a tweet repeating his remarks, he then clarified: "Hollande started the war in Mali, and Macron continued it".

Several socialists were indignant at these assertions, like the candidate Anne Hidalgo: "Definitely not! Now Jean-Luc Mélenchon is rewriting history. More than ever, France needs the Republican and European left", a- she tweeted Monday morning.

For the boss of the PS, Olivier Faure, "to confuse aggressors and attacked, to maintain confusionism and relativism, this is what Jean-Luc Mélenchon does, from Aleppo to Kiev, from Kiev to Bamako".

Judging on Twitter the words of the rebellious candidate "shameful and dangerous", he asserts: "peace is not surrender to all those who trample on fundamental human rights".

"When, by dint of turning around on international issues, Jean-Luc Melenchon's compass is running empty," also reacted PS Senator Patrick Kanner.

"François Hollande did not + trigger + the war in Mali. He intervened at the request of the Malian state to stem terrorism. Stop the falsification of history", he continued.

For Stéphane Le Foll, PS mayor of Le Mans, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's assertion is "fake news".

"France with François Hollande intervened in Mali at the request of the Malian state to deal with terrorism. Jean-Luc Mélenchon is definitely not a useful vote, dear Ségolène Royal", he quipped. address of the former presidential candidate of 2007, who recently declared that Jean-Luc Mélenchon represented the useful vote on the left.

LFI presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, March 6, 2022 in Lyon OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE AFP

"This man is ready for anything in this campaign. Even to rewrite history," denounced Senator Rachid Temal.

The campaign manager of Mr. Mélenchon, Manuel Bompard, reacted to AFP: "The interpretation of the socialists is dishonest" because "what Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced is the fact that he does not there has been only one vote in nine years on the war in Mali”, “a real democratic question”.

© 2022 AFP