The serious tone, the elocution less assured than usual and a probable search for emotion.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of rebellious France, engaged this Monday afternoon in a strange political exercise live on the YouTube platform.
The day after a controversial interview for which several politicians accused him of conspiratorial accents, the presidential candidate spoke to denounce threats of which he claims to be a victim.
"Bluntly calls for murder", he assured facing the camera, relying on the broadcast of a violent video of a far-right figure, entitled "Leftism is bulletproof?
".
A moment between confusion and indignation.
We take stock.
What is the context?
Sunday, the head of rebellious France, guest of the program
"Political questions"
of Franceinfo, France Inter and Le Monde, was questioned about the candidacy of Emmanuel Macron for a second term as president. And Jean-Luc Mélenchon to assure that he wished, rejoicing to have "something to say" on his "balance sheet", before launching into strange innuendos: "Otherwise, we get another little Macron of the hat (...), we do not know who it is, poof, he is elected president. It is the system which invents it (...) As you will see that in the last week of the presidential campaign, we will have a serious incident or a murder. (...) An extremely serious event which will once again make it possible to point the finger at Muslims and invent a civil war. "
The deputy (LFI), to illustrate his point, recalled three various facts that occurred a few weeks before the presidential term.
The killings in Toulouse and Montauban perpetrated in 2012, the attack on the Champs-Élysées in 2017, or the assault on a pensioner, Paul Voise, at his home in Orléans in April 2002. These comments immediately provoked indignation, in the political class but also with relatives of victims of attacks, such Latifa Ibn Ziaten, whose military son was killed by Mohammed Merah, and who denounced "inadmissible" remarks, demanding "respect for the victims".
Read alsoA "written in advance" incident at the end of the campaign?
5 minutes to understand the controversy triggered by Mélenchon
But while the political class generously commented on what was qualified by many as "slippage", the rebellious candidate surprised by first sending a press release and then speaking live to talk about another subject: the publication by a successful YouTuber, far-right figure, in a video featuring a fictitious armed attack on a LFI voter.
What to remember from Jean-Luc Mélenchon's reaction?
During the day, the head of LFI first published on his blog a statement entitled "Alert to the call for murder". “A morbid and violent atmosphere is maintained against the rebels and against me by name. This time, it's all about a call for murder. I just reported it to Pharos and the military commander of the Bourbon Palace, ”he wrote. Pharos is a platform, created twelve years ago, which centralizes the reports made by Internet users against content deemed illegal and disseminated on the web, in order to cross-reference them, qualify them and possibly decide on legal treatment.
After having broadcast a summary of the video he denounces - to the point of surprising BFM live, which decided to cut the broadcast of the press conference -, the deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône finally made a reference to the subject of the day before and said "renew the expression of [his] compassion for the victims and families of victims (of the attacks, editor's note)" and denounces an "odious manipulation". Then to leave: "I am sure that you are raised with disgust and dread following this staging", he added, calling on the French to report the video to the platform which broadcasts it, as he l 'did.
"I believe that all of us must make the effort to bring down the level of verbal and visual violence which now reigns at the initiative of groups whose danger is no longer to be pointed out", asks the president of the parliamentary group France rebellious.
He reveals to have already been the victim "of a preparation for an attack which was fortunately thwarted and whose perpetrators (…) were finally sent back to correctional by an order of last May".
Since this press conference by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, considered by some as a counter-fire, the said video has been propelled as a top trend in France on the video platform.
At 5 p.m., it had more than 130,000 views at 4:30 p.m., compared to 108,000 at midday.
What do we see in this video denounced by the deputy?
The famous video was posted after the show in which Jean-Luc Mélenchon made his controversial remarks on Sunday, but its length (20 minutes) suggests a filming and editing that preceded it. We can see the youtubeur Papacito, a far-right figure, accompanied by Code Rheino, presented as a specialist in firearms, dressed in military uniforms, firing a rifle on a mannequin presented as a voter of LFI. "There are 6% of people who vote for Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party in this country, perhaps they will be destitute if something unforeseen happens in the coming years", declares the protagonist, who quipped: “What can we do for these people? "
"Papacito" then said to undertake "to see if the material of the guy (sic) who voted Mélenchon allows him to resist a potential terrorist attack on the territory", before firing, accompanied by a friend, with firearms, on the mannequin representing the voter LFI, then larded with stab wounds.
"So of course the purpose of this video is not to engage you in producing violence, it is purely experimental," says Papacito.
However, he explains, in a second step, how to get a weapon easily with a hunting license.
Who is this youtuber, Papacito?
Papacito, whose real name is Ugo Gil Jimenez, is a blogger who calls himself a royalist.
"He made himself known at the beginning of 2018 by making himself known through outrageous, vulgar, homophobic and racist remarks", explains Maxime Macé, journalist at Liberation, specialist of the radical far right at Liberation, on BFMTV .
According to him, he is close to "the cartoonist adulated of the extreme right Marsault and the favorite author of anti-immigration Laurent Obertone".
It is also found in Poland at Hussard, a shooting training center and others which wants to "give the French back the taste of armed combat" pic.twitter.com/5zk55UJ5XO
- Maxime Reynié (@MaximeReynie) June 7, 2021
Thanks to his videos and his words, followed by nearly 100,000 subscribers, he has since been invited to speak in media such as Sud Radio or Valeurs Actuelles.
According to him, he would have carried out the security of the former presidential candidate François Asselineau, president of the UPR.
He has also been able to publish small works, the latest of which, entitled "Punitive Expedition", is described as "in total disagreement with the leftist Geneva Convention, Punitive Expedition disinfects every corner of France with flame throwers and intercontinental ballistic missiles. ravaged by the scourge of laxity (…) Let's reverse the rules, purge France and create the last embargo: that of the culprits.
There will be no prisoners!
".
A few days ago, journalist Eric Zemmour spoke of Papacito as "his friend".
What follow-up to these declarations?
Jean-Luc Mélenchon announced to file a complaint individually and collectively thanks to a document that he should soon put online.
According to the leader of rebellious France, neither the Pharos platform nor the prosecution have yet reacted to his various complaints.
At around 5 p.m., the social network YouTube removed the video of Papacito, denounced by LFI.
"This video was deleted because it did not respect the rules of the YouTube community", we can now read.
As for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, renowned for his eloquence, his oral fluency and his taste for debate among current political figures, he has, in the eyes of many observers, weakened his image as a potential head of state. with what some analyze as an attempt to divert attention from the controversy of the day before.