French leftist leader Melenchon in ‘hot water’

Nazi comments

PARIS: French leftist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon was plunged into the eye of a storm on Sunday after comments about the Nazis that one minister branded "shameful".

At a mass demonstration in Paris on Saturday against labour reform, Melenchon said: "It’s the street that toppled France’s kings, it’s the street that drove out the Nazis". He was responding to centrist President Emmanuel Macron’s comments earlier in the week that "democracy is not the street". But Melenchon defended his remarks in the face of widespread criticism, saying on his blog on Sunday that he "never compared the current government to Nazis".

The leader of the hard left party France Unbowed, who had appealed to opponents of the labour reforms to "swamp" Paris in Saturday’s demonstrations, has sought to portray his party as the only real opposition to Macron.

Several political figures quickly condemned his comments, with government spokesman Christophe Castaner saying on French radio they were a "moral" and "political error". Castaner also tweeted a picture of Melenchon wearing a tricolour sash while addressing the crowds, saying he was "unworthy of wearing these colours when mixing Democrats and Republicans with Nazi mud".