Pans are piling up for the leader of rebellious France.
Then MEP, Jean-Luc Mélenchon clearly opposed a European Parliament resolution of October 23, 2014 denouncing the dissolution of the NGO Memorial in Russia.
A vote of the original rebel who could have gone unnoticed if he had not been exhumed on Twitter.
During his term as MEP Jean-Luc Mélenchon made a full report of his votes during plenary sessions.
From 20 to 23 October 2014, MEPs are invited to vote on a resolution put forward by five parliamentary groups (ECR, EPP, Verts/ALE, S&D, ALD) aimed at denouncing the dissolution of the NGO Memorial targeted by the law Russian on "
foreign agents
".
In a nine-line paragraph, Jean-Luc Mélenchon bluntly explains his choice to vote against this text: “
The resolution aims to condemn Russia.
We note that while the EU is concerned about Russia's non-compliance with international legal obligations, it is much less observant in other cases (Hungary, editor's note)
”.
The tribune even qualifies the resolution as a "
text with tension
" seeking to "
isolate Russia
".
However, the resolution does not provide for sanctions against the country of Lenin, but for an increase in European financial aid to Russian civil society.
“
I no longer remember this event very well, but Jean-Luc Mélenchon had to vote against to push the European institutions to the limit and confront them with their inconsistencies
, explains to
Le Figaro
a MEP LFI wishing to remain anonymous and having voted for this resolution
.
People often misinterpret the vote against, and then the context was different from today
”.
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In October 2014, the invasion of Ukraine had not yet taken place, but the authoritarian excesses of Putin's regime were already very present and the association co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize had paid the price.
Founded in 1989 in a policy of transparency of the USSR, the organization is dedicated to a work of memory on the crimes and repressions carried out by the Soviet Union.
Gradually, the NGO began to denounce the abuses of Vladimir Putin's regime and fought for respect for human rights in Russia.
In 2012, she was accused by the Kremlin of conveying a bad image of the former USSR and of not mentioning the label "
foreign agents " in her publications.
".
It was banned on Russian territory in 2016 before being officially liquidated in 2021. On October 7, Russian justice ordered the seizure of Memorial's offices in Moscow.
