Jean-Luc Mélenchon announced on Sunday that he was cancelling a planned appearance on TF1's "20 heures" news programme this week, saying he was unhappy with the way Édouard Philippe had been allowed to set out what he described as a "disgusting" argument on immigration "without being interrupted".
Writing on X a few minutes after the Le Havre mayor appeared on the channel's evening bulletin, the left-wing candidate said: "Anne-Claire Coudray takes up Édouard Philippe's racist slanders. He unfolds his disgusting discourse without being interrupted. On Monday, I will not go to the 20 heures of that channel." He gave no further details in the post.
Neither La France Insoumise nor TF1 had announced that Mélenchon would be interviewed on the channel, where he formalised his candidacy for the presidency of the Republic in May. A person close to the Insoumis leader, however, told AFP that an interview had indeed been scheduled during the week, ahead of the party's major rally at Le Bourget in Seine-Saint-Denis on Saturday.
The dispute follows comments by Philippe after the riots of 17 October, when he said that "the overrepresentation of young people from immigrant backgrounds" in the violence around the demonstrations was "patent" and pointed to "the failure of integration" in France over "several decades". Asked on Sunday evening by presenter Anne-Claire Coudray what conclusion he had drawn, the former prime minister replied that in the footage of the looting "there were in fact a certain number, and a significant number, of young French people — no doubt, whom I consider French — from immigrant backgrounds. Which reflects a subject we must look in the eyes."
Mélenchon, a frequent critic of what he calls the media's "official" framing, has long had conflictual relations with the press. He regularly castigates news outlets on his X account, which has 2.7 million followers, and sometimes targets journalists directly over articles he contests. Since the racist attack in Trappes, the Insoumis have accused television channels of allowing far-right racist speech to proliferate.
Sources: Le Figaro.