He assumes that he wants to "undo" and shake up a "anaesthetized" campaign.
For two days, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's remarks on the police shootings on Saturday in Paris which cost the life of a young woman because the driver of the car in which she was found had, according to the police, refused to comply and shown a threat, are controversial on the right.
The outgoing deputy of rebellious France, leader of the Nupes for the legislative elections, explained this Tuesday morning, at length on France Inter.
Saturday evening, Mélenchon spoke in detail on the subject.
"It's reprehensible to refuse to stop but since when does that deserve shots?
“, he asked about LCI, recalling that the day before, travelers who had not had a train at the Gare de l’Est had been sprayed with tear gas.
“We need a reasoned, reasonable, proportionate doctrine of the use of force, we must return to a practice that is much more supportive of events”, he defends on Saturday, rather than “training” citizens “with tear gas”.
He followed this intervention with a tweet.
Shots fired at people who... refuse to comply?
Tear gas on citizens wanting to get on a bus?
We must break with the disastrous employment doctrine of the police, stop rising to the paroxysm of violence.
We are not trained with tear gas.
pic.twitter.com/2Y2wqhYr4f
— Jean-Luc Melenchon (@JLMelenchon) June 5, 2022
“This first tweet had no effect, so I raised the tone”, he justified this Tuesday morning.
Sunday evening, he therefore wrote on the social network that “the police kills and the factious group Alliance justifies the shootings and the death for
refusing to comply
.
Shame is when?
»
The police kill and the rebel group Alliance justifies the shootings and the death for "refusal to comply".
Shame is when?
— Jean-Luc Melenchon (@JLMelenchon) June 5, 2022
The spark that was missing to make the controversy take hold.
If on Monday his right-hand man Manuel Bompard tried to play down this accusation, Mélenchon, for his part, assures today that he has obtained what he was looking for, that "thousands of people hear that there is at least one politician who does not do not accept the evolution of the use of force by the police".
"I say it: it's not normal that we kill for a refusal to comply" he insists, "we are at four deaths in four months" for the same reason.
"What was the 21-year-old guilty of?
She is the wife of whom, she has children?
We don't talk about it.
The only thing we say is
Mélenchon is wrong
, ”he is offended.
"It's not normal that we kill someone because he refuses to comply", and all the less, he recalls, that the heavy liability of the driver - an argument put forward by the police unions and several politicians since Sunday - was not known when the police opened fire on rue Custine.
"It is necessary to stop this escalation because, otherwise, we will be the United States of America", estimates @JLMelenchon who wants to dismantle the anti-crime brigade, no more "local police" and "judicial police" for " run after traffickers" #le79Inter pic.twitter.com/qdvBDItqOK
– France Inter (@franceinter) June 7, 2022
“We have been condemned by several European bodies for the abuse of violence and violence of the materials we use, such as the de-encirclement grenades.
It is necessary to stop this escalation”, pleads the aspiring Prime Minister.
“There is not only one police force, the one who finds it normal that we shoot and who ask for strangulation keys.
I am for a peacekeeping police”, “I call for the awakening of the republican police”.
He affirms that "many police officers come (to) see him" to tell him of their discomfort with the very security doctrine of the maintenance of order currently deployed in France.
"I call for the awakening of the Republican police"
If he wanted to launch a “hair-raising” debate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is still far from it, at least within the political class.
Like Monday, many scolded his remarks, particularly his phrase "the police kill".
"Challenging the entire French police should be electorally eliminatory," said Marine Le Pen on France Info.
The leader of the National Rally continues to plead for more police and for a "presumption of self-defense" granted to the police.
More furious, the president of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand denounces "a scandal".
“Making a business out of permanent criticism of the police is a scandal.
And he would like to be Prime Minister, but never in life!
“, thunders on RTL the unsuccessful candidate for the Republican primary.
“The words of Mr. Mélenchon are intolerable and show that he is on the far left, he owes the police an apology”, abounds the senator from Vendée Bruno Retailleau (LR).
“Every day that passes today, there will be a hundred police officers, gendarmes, firefighters who will have to deal with violence.
They are on the front line of ultraviolence”.
And the president of the LR group in the Senate to accuse "also a form of judicial laxity".