A year into the obliteration of Gaza and its population, it’s an interesting thought experiment to speculate on how the international situation would be different if a Corbyn led Labour Party were in office. 

La France Insoumise (LFI) and its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon are now getting the same treatment Corbyn got. Le Figaro, approximately a French Times / Daily Telegraph hybrid, gave its readers a special Christmas shopping glossy magazine as a free gift. The back page is an advert for a Cartier watch for anyone who needs a stocking filler for their beloved. Prices range from £3570 to over £35 000, so there is something for every budget. The festive vibe is rather broken by a nine page spread of the familiar slander that opposing the slaughter in Gaza is proof of antisemitism. More specifically, it argues that LFI is actively working with reactionary, sectarian Islamists to win Muslim votes. Much the same thing used to be said about Respect.

An interesting fact about Le Figaro is that it is owned by the Dassault Group which makes war planes and provides technology to the Israelis, a minor detail which doesn’t make it into the LFI feature. Probably just human error.

Omar Yousssef Souleimane, the author of the hatchet job which was kindly published by a paper linked to an arms company which makes money from the destruction of Gaza, is a Syrian refugee from Assad’s murderous dictatorship. Sections of the feature are strikingly propagandistic and unconnected with anything to do with LFI. Two third of a page is devoted to a small article called “I come from a world where the word “Jew” is an insult”. The clear implication is that every Muslim hates Jews, certainly anyone browsing for a £450 Burberry scarf would form that opinion. If you throw enough muck some of it will stick.

LFI is a Trojan horse for Islamists

What really seems to be agitating Souleimane and the Dassault Group is that lots of Muslims, particularly young Muslims, are supporting LFI precisely because of its high profile opposition to the genocide. A reasonable comparison is the growth of the American and European far left during the Vietnam War. Young people turned away in disgust from the parties which supported American imperialism and found political alternatives which offered a revolutionary internationalism.

Souleimane explains that he frequently works with young people in schools in deradicalisation programmes and is appalled when he is constantly told that they intend to vote LFI because Melenchon is “the only one who protects Muslims and Arabs from the white French”. Worse still, they use the language of decolonisation they have picked up from anti-fascists and Islamists.  Souleimane asks rhetorically if the LFI has become a Trojan horse to allow the Islamists to have social and political influence in French society. Anyone who is familiar with the French left’s fondness for a bottle of red wine and the contortions it has got itself into over women wearing Islamic clothing will find this hilarious.

La France Insoumise and the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (NPA) have taken principled stands on the Gaza genocide. This has involved swimming against the current of French politics where much of the ruling class is even more pro-Israel than its British counterpart. Demonstrations are heavily policed and the cops try to intimidate those taking part. Those of us who observed first hand how the lie of widespread antisemitism in the British Labour Party was used for years to destroy the Corbyn movement have no trouble recognising that exactly the same methods are being used in France. But at least the British propaganda machine didn’t rely on a newspaper that was part of a conglomerate supplying weapons to the IDF.

Ooh, those €590 shoes look nice.