Bernard-Henri Levy on the “Buzz TV” set this Monday, November 13, 2023. Screenshot / Figaro TV
FIGARO LIVE – This weekend, the president of the National Rally announced his intention to take the writer to court after the latter’s comments made on the set of “C à Vous” where he described him as “anti-Semitic”.
Like thousands of French people on Sunday, Bernard-Henri Levy walked in the streets of Paris against anti-Semitism. Invited on the set of “Buzz TV” to promote his third documentary film on Ukraine broadcast Tuesday evening in the first part of the evening on France 2, the writer returned to the Sunday event in which 105,000 people participated in the capital . “It was a great moment of relief and consolation for French Jews who have felt alone so often in recent years.“, he describes, keeping in mind the image “Jews who cried with emotion“.
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BHL did not hear, as LFI deputy Antoine Léaument on X erts, Islamophobic remarks. “Another infamy from La France Insoumise», replies the philosopher. “But they are not stingy these days», he continues before commenting on the words of Jean-Luc Mélenchon who believes that this march “will have served to whitewash the extreme right“. “It’s disgusting ! It is so insulting and cruel for those who were there, who felt comforted by this Republican upsurge. It’s despicable», summarizes Bernard-Henri Levy. “When a politician says that, he disgraces himself. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has been disgraced since his series of statements following the pogrom of October 7“, he still believes.
Last Friday, Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, announced his intention to file a defamation complaint against Bernard-Henri Levy. The latter, guest in “C à Vous”, having described it as “anti-Semitic“. Three days later, the person concerned does not regret his words. “Of course not and it would be good if he filed a complaint. We could thus address the question on the merits», Adds Arielle Dombasle’s husband. “To be anti-Semitic or not to be anti-Semitic is not a decision you make one fine morning. It’s good to have walked yesterday. But when you come from this tradition, it’s real work to break with anti-Semitism. This means that we stop considering that wearing the kippah is an ostentatious religious sign like the Islamic veil which is the position of the one who preceded her as president of the National Rally (Marine Le Pen, Editor’s note). It must be made clear that Jean-Marie Le Pen’s comments were disgusting. Let this trial come, it will allow me to think about all this in depth“.
“Of course, anti-Semitism comes from the far left”
Bernard-Henri Levy on “Buzz TV”
He nevertheless believes that anti-Semitism has shifted and is now “on the left side of Jean-Luc Mélenchon” Today. “This trip, I analyzed it, I believe among the first for years and years», he recalls. “Forty years ago I wrote a bookFrench ideology, which explained that anti-Semitism was as much on the left as on the right, as much in the workers’ movement among the followers of Jules Guesde as on the extreme right among the followers of Charles Maurras. (…) But, you understand, there is no anti-Semitism that I prefer to the other or that I condemn less than the other. It is a hateful pion wherever it comes from. And of course today it comes from the extreme left, for the most part, it’s true“.
In Ukraine at the heart broadcast Tuesday evening on France 2, Bernard-Henri Levy is alongside the Ukrainian fighters. This documentary film was filmed last summer, shortly after Vladimir Putin’s second counter-offensive.