Jérôme Guedj regrets calling Jean-Luc Mélenchon a "bastard" but not an "anti-Semite"

"I will express one regret: having used the term 'bastard ' ." If we were hoping for a calming effect from Jérôme Guedj after his comments at the weekend, it was a failure.

Guest on BFM on Monday, June 16, the socialist deputy, who described the rebellious leader as an "anti-Semitic bastard" on the stage of the Nancy congress, used strategic mitigation, that is, he removed the most emotionally charged term to keep his much more accusatory epithet, to return to his last remarks. "I regret the term 'bastard ,' " he repeated. " And what's more, it wasn't useful. It's a form of pleonasm. 'Anti-Semite ' was enough."

But the Essonne representative wasn't only after Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who, in return, challenged him "to find in [his] writings or speeches a single time in the last forty years the expressions he attributes to [him]." Olivier Faure also took some flak. Interviewed that same morning on France 2, the re-elected First Secretary of the Socialist Party dismissed Jérôme Guedj and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who, according to him, "find a common interest in attacking each other." "I found that pathetic because it's an accusatory reversal," reacted Jérôme Guedj, who supported Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, who advocated distancing himself from LFI.

A former close associate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and a major supporter of the left-wing Nupes alliance after the 2022 presidential election, Jérôme Guedj broke with LFI after the October 7 attacks. The rebellious leader has since made very harsh and ambiguous remarks against him, notably calling him "a coward of that human variety that we all know, the informers." Jérôme Guedj's relationship with Olivier Faure has also become difficult, accusing him of a lack of support in the face of attacks against him from LFI and the far left.

For his part, the Socialist leader said Monday that he would not offer the apologies demanded by LFI for the remarks made by Jérôme Guedj. LFI "would do well to clean up its own house" for "the constant insults and mockery." against Jérôme Guedj and other socialist leaders, he stressed.

An ally of the Socialist Party, but opposed to the alliance with LFI from 2024, the leader of Place Publique Raphaël Glucksmann said the same day on TF1 that he "understands this anger expressed by Jérôme Guedj." "After a while, we get fed up " He is excluded from demonstrations, he is called a Zionist all the time because there is an orchestrated campaign against him, a campaign with anti-Semitic overtones," he said.

And the man who wants to run as a Social Democratic candidate in the presidential election (without a primary) criticizes Olivier Faure for a lack of "clarity" regarding LFI in view of the upcoming elections. "Clarity is very simple [...] there will be no joint government program in the legislative elections," he demanded, while Olivier Faure refused to rule out any form of alliance with LFI in the event of a new dissolution, as his internal opponents within the Socialist Party were asking him to do.