Arab News | France’s far-left leader attacked for remarks on Ukraine

PARIS: France’s far-left presidential contender Jean-Luc Melenchon was attacked by political rivals on Sunday over comments about Ukraine that critics said made him sound like a Kremlin spokesman.

Melenchon, leader of the France Unbowed (LFI) party, said in a speech on Saturday that settling the Ukraine conflict could not be done by granting territorial concessions without consulting the people concerned.

But Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Melenchon had “simply made himself the Kremlin’s spokesman” in his remarks on a peace settlement in Ukraine.

And that, “in my opinion definitively disqualifies him from holding the position to which he aspires,” he told broadcaster RTL/Public Senat.

Opinion polls suggest that Melenchon has a chance of reaching the second round of next year’s presidential election.

In Saturday’s campaign speech, he raised the issue of the Donbas, a swathe of eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia as its own, much of which it has already captured.

“We cannot accept that one could consider a peace with territorial concessions in Ukraine without asking the populations concerned if they agree or not to be on one side or other of the border,” Melenchon told supporters.

“It is for the people themselves to decide what they want,” he added.

Melenchon dismissed Barrot’s criticism in a post to X Sunday.

The minister was trying to attribute to him his own policy of giving up the Donbas, he said, citing a December 2025 proposal on “territorial exchanges.”

“Poor Barrot has once again missed a chance to keep quiet,” he added.

But Raphael Glucksmann, Melenchon’s main rival on the left, also accused Melenchon of pushing the propaganda advanced by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On the proposal of a referendum in the Donbas, Glucksmann told broadcaster BFMTV that Melenchon was “reciting… talking points handed out by the Kremlin for years and years.”

Russia had forced the Ukrainian population out of the parts of the Donbas it already controlled, he added.

Ukraine has so far refused any territorial concessions in peace talks.

The row comes days before US-mediated talks with Moscow and Kyiv in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending the Ukraine war are due to begin.