"It is the representative of the Great Bretons, it is they who choose the regime that suits them," noted the head of LFI.
"They have a king, it is not our taste to us French who are republicans," he smiled.
"But he is welcome because he represents the English people, as long as the English people have not done what is necessary, that is to say to establish a republic," said Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The former presidential candidate added mischievously: "Because the English will one day or another have a republic, like the Spaniards, and all free countries."
Tuesday in a meeting in Ariège, he had been more acidic, addressing Emmanuel Macron, who refuses to withdraw his controversial pension reform: "What do you leave us as perspective, apart from admiring you in Versailles with the king I do not know how much?"
And the one who has applied three times to be head of the French state had also addressed Charles III: "Here is the Republic. Listen, Monsieur le Roi we have nothing against you, you are the King of the English it's your business, but the rest of us, Versailles what's okay... It wasn't the right time."
LFI founder Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the set of TF1 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, on March 23, 2023 © JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP
For his first state visit abroad as sovereign from Sunday to Wednesday, Charles III will pay his respects at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris before addressing the Senate, a first for a British monarch. He will also travel to Bordeaux in the South-West. A state dinner will be held on Monday evening at the Palace of Versaillles.
But the excesses and tension that have increased this week in the mobilization against the postponement of the retirement age to 64 years, as well as declarations of defiance of some trade unionists vis-à-vis the arrival of Charles III, worry the English authorities.
Asked about the clashes between police and demonstrators, Jean-Luc Mélenchon recalled: "I do not agree with these forms of action, they invisibilize" the peaceful social movement.
© 2023 AFP