Thibault Nadal
In the documentary by journalist Mireille Dumas, entitled “Politics, they know the song”, published in 2016, Jean-Luc Mélenchon revealed that he suffered “from a real depression” for several months, just after the defeat of Lionel Jospin at the first round of the presidential election in 2002.
This is an unexpected anecdote collected by journalist Mireille Dumas. In his 2016 documentary, titled Politicians, they know the song, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, reveals to have suffered from… depression. It was April 21, 2002, just after the defeat of the socialist candidate in the first round of the presidential election, against Jacques Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen. At that time, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was still in the Socialist Party. He had confided to Mireille Dumas “to have been broken by this story. I was depressed behind and it was a real depression, not the depression, you know, the vagueness in the soul”.
“When I was making my bed, it was tears”
The now leader of rebellious France explained that at that time, “he could no longer get up in the morning”, before specifying that it “took him months to recover”. The one who aspires to become Prime Minister on Sunday during the second round of the legislative elections explains that he held on thanks to politics. “As long as it was about playing politics, it worked. As soon as I had to move on, make my bed or go shave, then there were the tears and all the rest. Depression , it’s a disease, you shouldn’t make fun of it because often people say: ‘Oh yes, you listen to yourself too much, but no, it’s a disease. We suffer and we don’t know what to do anymore. “, he confided.
Mireille Dumas explains on the show Media culture on Europe 1 to have succeeded in splitting Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s armor, thanks to the concept of his documentary. “The goal was to enter through the song. What was interesting was to ask them the songs that had marked them throughout their lives,” explains the journalist. She confides that she discovered during her interview that Jean-Luc Mélenchon “was deaf, that he heard very badly and that he had suffered from depression”.