Laura Laplaud
If they both come from the same political side, if they both joined the Socialist Party and gave body and soul for the election of Lionel Jospin in 2002, the philosopher Raphaël Enthoven and the leader of France Insoumise Jean -Luc Mélenchon are far from close. At one point, the essayist was even paid to speak ill of the politician.
Will Raphaël Enthoven have been paid to speak ill of Jean-Luc Mélenchon? This is the revelation made by the philosophy associate on Monday morning in media culture, invited on the occasion of the release of his books Who knows Fabien Roussel? and Krasnaya, both published by L’Observatoire.
“My job at the time was to speak ill of Jean-Luc Mélenchon”, he says while specifying that at this period of his life, that is to say between 2003 and 2004, he was technical adviser to Laurent Fabius. “I was asked that at the Socialist Party (PS), it was explicitly my specifications, which I fulfilled with great pleasure, with sincerity”, he continues.
“I suspected insincerity”
A year later, when the controversy around the European Constitutional Treaty (ECT) arrived, “I was asked to say good things about Mélenchon”, says Raphaël Enthoven. “It’s not that I didn’t want to speak well of Mélenchon. It’s just that I suspected the insincerity behind these reversals of jackets. And so, I left the Socialist Party, convinced of its uselessness. “