Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a disaster for the French left – his response to the attack on Israel proves it | Alexander Hurst

He may be a gifted orator, but his rhetoric of rage and revolution is deepening divisions in France. It is time to dump him

If you want to know the deep values that drive someone, sometimes you have to look at who they admire, who they throw under the bus and who they refuse to unreservedly condemn. For the French far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, it should by now be clear. After all, the head of the leftwing opposition alliance has been in politics for four decades, and a senator since 1986. He stood as a radical left alternative to Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential elections and almost got through to the second round. But while Melenchon may have attracted many young voters to his campaign, he is no Bernie Sanders: his refusal to evolve from cold war-era reflexive anti-Americanism and his desire to pursue a revolutionary" brand of opposition have dragged the French left into unelectability and moral confusion.

As late as 2019, long after Venezuela had ceased to be a democracy and had become, instead, Latin America's primary source of political and economic refugees, Melenchon was still publicly expressing admiration for the late Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.

Alexander Hurst is a Guardian columnist. He is a France-based writer and an adjunct lecturer at Sciences Po, the Paris Institute of Political Studies