In a meeting on Thursday in Lyon as part of the municipal elections, the leader of La France Insoumise once again targeted the press, with whom his relations have soured since the death of Quentin Deranque.
Was it a controlled outburst or an uncontrolled outburst? At a meeting on Thursday evening in Lyon as part of the municipal elections, Jean-Luc Mélenchon once again criticized the press, with whom the relations of the Insoumis have deteriorated since the murder of Quentin Deranque, a nationalist student lynched to death two weeks ago in the capital of the Gauls. This was an opportunity for the Insoumis leader, who came to support the head of the LFI list, Anaës Belouassa-Cherifi, to address the supposed media silence around the Epstein affair.
Seven years after his death, the American pedocriminal remains at the center of a global scandal with multiple ramifications, fueled by his connections with various political, economic, and cultural personalities – which continues to feed theories and speculations, including in France. To the point that the Insoumis deputies have called for the creation of a transpartisan “parliamentary inquiry committee” on this matter, a request refused by the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet.
Referring to the investigative work of journalists from France Info in judicial affairs, Jean-Luc Mélenchon deplored the supposed lack of respect for the “secrecy of instruction.” “Unless it is the Epstein case,” he added, emphasizing the end of the financier’s surname. “Ah… I meant Epstine, sorry, it sounds more Russian, Epstine. So now you will say Epstine instead of Epstein, Frankenstin instead of Frankenstein! Well, everyone understands how to do it now. You can all make progress,” quipped the three-time presidential candidate. While this sequence may seem common within the Insoumise matrix – in line with the criticisms that LFI MEP Rima Hassan had addressed to a journalist from Le Parisien for mentioning the Russian track in the case to overshadow, according to her, the Mossad track, the Israeli intelligence service – it quickly sparked a controversy on social media.
[Context: The article discusses Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s controversial statements in a meeting regarding the Epstein case and the alleged antisemitic undertones in his remarks.] [Fact Check: There is a dispute over the pronunciation of “Epstein” and its potential relation to antisemitism.]
Explanation. In France, emphasizing the ending “ein” of a surname, in the Yiddish manner (language of Germanic origin historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe), “often refers to the Jewishness of a person,” specifies journalist and French literature specialist Marianna Perebenesiuk. This precision is far from trivial in this case, since Jeffrey Epstein was of Jewish faith. Consequently, several political and civil society figures have accused Jean-Luc Mélenchon of making a remark with antisemitic overtones.
Starting with the president of Crif (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France), Yonathan Arfi: “Despite what J.-L. Mélenchon says, a 5th grader knows that in English, ‘Epstein’ is pronounced ‘Epstine.’ Journalists are simply pronouncing an American name… in an American way. To see in this pronunciation the manipulation of an antisemitic conspiracy theorist is far-fetched. Regardless of the pronunciation, Mélenchon remains synonymous with political indignity,” he criticized.
This statement by Jean-Luc Mélenchon is likely to give his detractors more ammunition, who accuse the figurehead of the Insoumis of stoking antisemitism since the terrorist attacks of October 7. This date marked the turning point when, in the face of Israeli retaliations in Gaza, he made the Palestinian cause the main axis of his political strategy, seeing it as a lever for mobilizing youth and working-class neighborhoods, two electorates he seeks to win over to secure victory.
