The Assemblée Nationale rose and gave thunderous applause, in a show of support for the people of Israel after Saturday's unprecedented attack by Hamas. On Tuesday, October 10, in the Assemblée Nationale, the La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left) MPs were the last to rise. Their arms stayed conspicuously dangling or crossed. In an instant, everything was said, as the crisis rocking the Middle East permeates French political debate, casting a harsh light on the ulterior motives of each side.

By putting Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas on the same footing, while refusing to call the latter "terrorist," Jean-Luc Mélenchon and LFI have stirred up indignation since Saturday. This strategy – already at work during the urban riots or on the subject of police violence – is aimed at attracting an electoral clientele, as in 2022 Mélenchon achieved significant scores in neighborhoods where the Palestinian cause is embraced by young people from a North African immigrant background. But it threatens an already ailing Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale (NUPES). Some members of this left-wing coalition are now openly questioning whether they should remain in it, while the Parti Socialiste's first secretary, Olivier Faure, has been constantly distancing himself from his LFI ally since Saturday.

The radicality of LFI has another, mirror-image consequence: It finalizes the normalization effort of the Rassemblement National (RN, far right), which for its part condemned the terrorist acts in the strongest possible terms and sent a delegation to attend the Paris demonstration of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) at the Trocadéro on Monday. On Tuesday at the Assemblée Nationale, RN MP Marine Le Pen "solemnly" reaffirmed her support for the people of Israel, victims of "pogroms," while criticizing those who "excuse" or "relativize." She also called for "the protection of Jewish French people."

This operation had been skilfully prepared, and every word was carefully weighed. Condemning the Hamas attack in the strongest possible terms, while pointing out LFI's ambiguities, enabled Le Pen to move on from the anti-Semitic and Holocaust denialist remarks Jean-Marie Le Pen was wont to make, thereby continuing the dismantling of her father's legacy. "She says exactly the same things as the governing parties, with an added touch of securitization and anti-Muslim sentiment," noted former president François Hollande advisor Gaspard Gantzer.

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