“La Meute”: the book which accuses Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his court of sectarian practices

There is one thing where Jean-Luc Mélenchon has “done better” since the 2022 presidential election: he has refined his demonization. After the broadcast of the documentary of complementary investigation into France 2, a book, “La Meute” ¹ Posted on May 7, says the internal vicissitudes of rebellious France (LFI). A book that Flammarion editions unfortunately do not give us in time. Good sheets and extracts were therefore published in The world and other newspapers. In these chosen pieces, we discover the authoritarian ways of the founder of the movement and former candidate for the presidential election.

In the opening pages of the May 6 of Liberation edition, The co-author, Charlotte Belaïch, shows how much “Jean-Luc Mélenchon gradually built a clan ready to do anything to take him to power” and describes “court” phenomena, with activists waiting for him “Like the messiah” In what was then his Marseille district, and the construction of an inevitable belief, which welds leaders.

Olivier Pérou and Charlotte Belaïch also recount the evictions, even excommunications, and departures of experienced activists and leaders – the background of verbal violence – replaced by a young guard more faithful to the leader. This is the case with the fate reserved for Charlotte Girard, former head of the movement program who criticized the involvement in the European campaign of Sophia Chikirou, omnipresent and very close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon, regularly pointed out for his authoritarianism.

“No political idea is in this book”

Questioned in the National Assembly, the president of the rebellious deputies Mathilde Panot reacted to the publication of “La Meute”, seeing there “A work that collects gossip and lies”. “In some passages, there are people supposed to hate themselves, who are friends in real life”, she adds. The group heads underlines “That no political idea is in this book, none of our campaigns, none of our mobilizations”. And to recall: “If we are political leaders, it is to propose another social project to this country”.

This is one of the defects of the media sequence opened by the investigation supplement documentary and the pack. If this journalistic work will be instrumentalized to cornerize France rebellious as the Congress of the Socialist Party in June approaches, thus dodging the substantive debate on the political line of the movement. While it could however be subject to debate.