Mélenchon: France’s far-left leader attacked over Donbass vote
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called Jean-Luc Mélenchon a “mouthpiece of the Kremlin” on November 8 after the far-left leader urged a referendum on the Donbass. Barrot also said France will take part in Russia-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Sunday, November 8, called Jean-Luc Mélenchon a “mouthpiece of the Kremlin” over the far-left leader’s call for a referendum on the Donbass region of Ukraine. France’s far-left leader attacked in this way is the current runner-up in polls for the 2027 presidential election.
Barrot made the remarks on the broadcasters RTL and Public Sénat. He was asked about a speech Mélenchon gave the day before at a rally in Le Bourget, where the leader of La France Insoumise (LFI) addressed thousands of supporters.
Mélenchon said peace deals involving territorial concessions in Ukraine should not be accepted without a local vote. “We do not accept the idea of peace involving territorial concessions in Ukraine without asking the populations concerned whether they agree to find themselves on this side of the border or the other,” he said. On the Donbass, which Russian forces largely occupy, he added that “it is for the people to decide”.
Barrot rejected the idea outright. “All over the world the Kremlin is trying to convince heads of state and government that, basically, the Donbass is Russian and that the war of aggression is a war to liberate the Donbass,” he said.
He called Mélenchon’s stance “of unprecedented seriousness”. In his view, it “definitively disqualifies him from holding the offices he aspires to”.
Moscow has already staged sham consultations in annexed Crimea and in the four regions of south-eastern Ukraine it partly controls. Kyiv and the international community have rejected those votes.
LFI unveiled its programme, “L’Avenir en commun”, this week. It gives little space to the war in Ukraine, compared with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
France to join Abu Dhabi talks
Barrot also said European countries, France among them, will take part in Russia-Ukraine talks due to open Tuesday in Abu Dhabi under US mediation. He said he would not be at the table himself and could not yet name France’s representative.
The talks, scheduled for November 10 and 11, had until now been presented as three-way negotiations between Ukrainian, Russian and American officials. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had said he wanted Kyiv’s European allies involved.
Barrot said Europeans had told the American mediators that no discussion on the continent’s future could ignore their demands. He said he did not know what US President Donald Trump had in mind when Trump predicted a “major agreement” with Russia that “could cover all of Europe”. Trump made that prediction after meeting Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev on Thursday.
No deal affecting European security, Barrot said, could be “designed, or even discussed” without Europeans.
Ukraine in the 2027 race
The war has already caused controversy in the 2027 campaign. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, well ahead in the polls, and Mélenchon, in second place, have taken positions seen as favorable to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In mid-October, Le Pen said she would end French financial aid to Ukraine, which she estimates at 6 billion euros a year, if elected. Zelenskyy replied that “Madame Le Pen does not have a very good grasp of certain details” of French-Ukrainian military cooperation.
