Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of France’s far-left party, launched a sharp attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of financing a smear campaign against his party’s members during local elections in France. “When Mr. Netanyahu paid people to denigrate us in Toulouse, Marseille and Roubaix, apparently that wasn’t a problem,” Mélenchon claimed. According to him, “Foreign interference is becoming increasingly widespread, and it goes unpunished.”
French Presidential Candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon:
When Mr. Netanyahu paid people to denigrate us in Toulouse, Marseille and Roubaix, apparently that wasn’t a problem.
Foreign interference is becoming increasingly widespread, and it goes unpunished. https://t.co/S40fgGVPak
— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 8, 2026
Mélenchon’s remarks come amid an affair exposed in France surrounding influence operations on social media against candidates from his party, France Unbowed (LFI). According to reports in French media, during the local election campaign, defamatory posts were circulated against the party’s candidates in Marseille, Toulouse and Roubaix, including through fake accounts and websites.
The affair raised suspicions of foreign interference in French elections. Reports published in France attributed the activity to Israeli actors, and among other things mentioned an Israeli company allegedly involved in running the influence operation.
However, it’s important to emphasize that there is a significant gap between claims of Israeli actors’ involvement in the influence activity and the direct accusation Mélenchon leveled against Netanyahu. So far, no public evidence has been presented that the prime minister himself ordered the campaign, financed it, or was personally involved in it.
Mélenchon, considered one of the harshest critics of Israel’s government in the French political arena, has previously raised claims of Israeli interference in local politics. Now he’s pointing the finger directly at Netanyahu, claiming that foreign influence operations are expanding without those responsible facing punishment.