In a July 16 radio interview, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left French political party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), said that Jesus Christ’s “compatriots” put him on the cross.
According to i24 News, Mélenchon was asked if “the police should be like Jesus on the cross and not reply” during the anti-racism protests. Mélenchon replied, “I don’t know if Jesus was on the cross. I know who put him there; it seems that it was his own compatriots.”
Anti-defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted that Mélenchon essentially accused Jews of killing Jesus. “Disturbing that the leader of left-wing France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, used an age-old anti-semitic trope accusing Jews of killing Jesus,” Greenblatt wrote.
He then provided a link to a section of the ADL’s guide on anti-Semitic myths, explaining the history behind the trope that Jews killed Jesus.
Disturbing that the leader of left-wing France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon,used an age-old antisemitic trope accusing Jews of killing Jesus. Learn more about why this accusation has such deep antisemitic roots: https://t.co/LXfkyOKWfn https://t.co/ez1XprbMT6
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) July 16, 2020
In 2019, Mélenchon accused the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions of “blatant, violent and aggressive sectarianism, namely against me … to the point of encouraging people to hit me during a demonstration like the one for Mirelle Knoll.” Knoll was the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor killed in March 2018; two men suspected of killing her will stand trial.
