Into the three-ring circus of the French legislative election campaign has stepped Jeremy Corbyn. The papi magique arrived on the Eurostar last weekend to campaign for candidates of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose insurrectionary ultra-left campaign is threatening to deny the recently re-elected Emmanuel Macron a presidential majority in the parliament. First round voting is on Sunday. A runoff will be a week later.
Those tempted to overlook the continuing appeal of Mr Corbyn and dismiss him as a political has-been or even an unreconstructed Marxist clown, would perhaps have been startled to see him mobbed by adoring fans in Paris.
Corbyn was feted as a red prince from over the water. And of course he immediately provoked an anti-Semitism row in France. The denunciations of Corbyn’s problematic associations and statements soon flew in. Mélenchon’s candidates were attacked from left and right for having consorted with the problematic Mr Corbyn.
It’s peculiar that it took Jeremy Corbyn’s arrival on the French election scene to stir up allegations of anti-Semitism in France.
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