Today, Thursday, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, before heading to Ireland to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, at a time when Washington is seeking to give new momentum to its efforts to achieve peace.
Kushner said that one of the goals of the meeting with Putin was to obtain the Russian President’s approval for the participation of European representatives in the talks, which address broader security arrangements on the European continent.
Yuri Ushakov, assistant to the Russian president, described the talks that took place on Thursday as “important, constructive, frank and useful,” according to the Associated Press.
He added that the Russian President reminded Witkov and Kushner of the proposals made by Moscow in 2021, before sending its forces to Ukraine, in which it demanded that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) withdraw its military deployment from Central and Eastern Europe. Ushakov said Russia would update those proposals by adding “new considerations.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Europe must first appoint a representative if it wants to participate in peace talks. He added: “Europeans quarrel among themselves like spiders in a bowl. If someone initiates contacts with the Russian side, he faces ostracism and isolation.”
Putin reiterated to the American envoys that it would be “absolutely unacceptable” to send any European forces to Ukraine after the ceasefire, a proposal that Europe had long put forward to prevent Moscow from launching a new attack, and that Russia would consider the deployment of these forces a threat to its security and legitimate targets.
“In other words, the war will resume immediately,” the Russian president continued.
He also added that Russia considers that its borders with Ukraine, which are supposed to be demarcated by any potential peace agreement, currently extend to include the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow annexed in 2022, but it has never fully imposed its control over them.
German police announced Thursday evening the launch of a major security mission and the evacuation of the synagogue in the city of Gießen in the state of Hesse following the discovery of a suspicious letter containing “anti-Semitic statements and threats.”
The police explained that when the letter was opened this afternoon, a powder that has not yet been identified came out. The police lifted the extensive security cordon around the synagogue in the late afternoon; However, the synagogue remained closed until further notice, according to a police spokeswoman.
There were 26 people inside the synagogue at the time of the accident, and they were taken out as a precaution. Police believe that four people were in the immediate vicinity of the letter when it was opened. They were examined by the ambulance service, but they were all allowed to leave the accident site, as there was no need for them to receive medical treatment.
The criminal investigation office of the police in the state of Hessen investigated the incident. The branch’s statement said: “A forensic and technical examination of the powder is currently being conducted to determine the nature of its substance and whether it poses a danger.” The statement added that investigations are also underway to uncover the precise circumstances of the incident.
Hesse State Interior Minister, Roman Buzek, said that the police are dealing with the case at a rapid pace, noting that the incident represents another horrific example of attacks targeting “Jewish life.” Buzek, who belongs to the Christian Democratic Party of Chancellor Friedrich Merez, added: “This is shameful,” stressing: “We will continue to do everything in our power to effectively protect our Jewish life.”
The police confirmed that there was no threat to the general public. In addition to the forces of the Central Hesse Police Presidency, members of the professional fire brigades and the rescue service participated in dealing with the incident.
Hesse State Prime Minister Boris Rehn described the threat targeting the Jewish community and its synagogue as “unbearable.” The Christian party politician said: “Anyone who directs hatred and threats to the Jews in our country will be punished with the utmost severity.” "It is good that our police moved quickly."
For his part, the mayor of the city of Gießen, Frank Thilo Becher, described the incident as a “despicable” act of threat, and said: “We strongly condemn this heinous anti-Semitic act, and declare our full solidarity with the Jewish community.” He added that what happened reflects “pure anti-Semitic hatred,” stressing that the city will confront it with all its might.
In the halls of major political conferences in France, a hoarse voice rises, playing with French rhetoric like a musician plays with his strings, moving between the tone of an angry revolutionary and the tone of a contemplative philosopher. He is Jean-Luc Melenchon, the founder of the “Proud France” movement and the most difficult figure in the equation of the French left, who not only redrew the map of the political opposition, but also made himself an electoral and media phenomenon that raises a sharp division between followers who see him as the voice of the popular classes and minorities, and opponents who accuse him of populism and extremism.
From the alleys of Tangier to the terraces of philosophy
Jean-Luc Mélenchon's first roots go back to the southern bank of the Mediterranean, specifically to the Moroccan city of Tangier, in the north of the kingdom, where he was born on August 19, 1951, when it was subject to the international zone system.
He grew up in a French family of Spanish and Sicilian origins, where his father worked as a postal employee and his mother as a teacher, which instilled in him early a sense of belonging to public service and a culture of pluralism.
After moving to France as a teenager following his parents' separation, Mélenchon went on to study philosophy at the University of Franche-Comté. There, his political awareness blossomed in the midst of student and trade union movements, before he worked as a professor of philosophy and a journalist, a journey that refined his superior ability for rhetoric and analysis, and gave him that theoretical tendency that does not leave his public speeches.
A journey full of positions and defections
Mélenchon began his institutional journey from the gates of the French Socialist Party, which he joined in the seventies, and rose through its ranks to become the youngest member of the French Senate for the province of Essonne in 1986.
He also held the vocational education portfolio in the government of socialist Lionel Jospin between 2000 and 2002, before he decided in 2008 to break with the Socialist Party, accusing it of deviating towards liberalism.
Mélenchon then founded the “Left Party,” and then in 2016 he launched his most prominent political movement, “Proud France,” which adopted a horizontal organization based on digital and popular mobilization. He crowned his parliamentary career with his election as a representative in the National Assembly for the city of Marseille, to lead a fierce parliamentary bloc in the face of President Emmanuel Macron’s policies.
Elysee ambition... a fourth attempt by Ibn Tangier
The upcoming presidential battle is not the first in the record of the seventy-year-old politician, as Mélenchon is running in the race for the Elysee Palace for the fourth time in a row. In his first participation in 2012, he came fourth with 11.1 percent of the votes, then returned in the 2017 elections and jumped to 19.58 percent, maintaining fourth place.
As for the peak of his electoral rise, it was in the 2022 ballot, when he won 21.95 percent of the votes, occupying third place, and only about 420,000 votes separated him from qualifying for the second round, a number that still fuels his supporters’ conviction that reaching the presidency is within reach.
The whirlwind of controversy and the ban on entry into Israel
Mélenchon's name has long been associated with loud controversies, whether due to his harsh language towards the media and judicial institutions, or his international stances against NATO and the United States. However, the most explosive crisis was linked to his positions on the war in the Gaza Strip, where he described the Israeli military operations as “genocide,” and demanded an immediate ceasefire and French recognition of the State of Palestine.
These positions brought him repeated accusations from his political opponents of “anti-Semitism,” which Mélenchon strongly denies, stressing the distinction between criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and hostility to Jews.
Diplomatic tension also escalated to the point that the Israeli authorities announced a ban on his entry into its territory, in a move to which the leader of “proud France” responded by pledging to implement the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Netanyahu if he wins the presidency.
A fierce defender of immigrants and a close relationship with Muslims
In the French political scene charged with identity issues, Mélenchon is positioned on the front against the discourse of the extreme right, adopting clear positions in support of immigrant rights and rejecting the tightening of asylum laws.
The leader of “Proud France” believes that immigration is a natural humanitarian and economic phenomenon, calling for regularizing the conditions of irregular workers and providing decent reception conditions for refugees, considering that cultural diversity represents a source of enrichment for French society.
Mélenchon also forged a close relationship with the Muslim community and residents of the popular suburbs, raising the slogan of defending them against what he describes as systematic “Islamophobia,” and rejecting laws that restrict the wearing of religious symbols in public space, schools, or sports, considering that true secularism guarantees freedom of belief and is not used as a tool to exclude Muslims.
These positions gained him a solid electoral base in the suburbs, while in return this exposed him to sharp criticism from his opponents, who accuse him of practicing “electoral clientelism” and being lenient with political Islam trends.
His book “The Common Future”...a roadmap for estrangement
Mélenchon was not satisfied with enthusiastic speeches, but rather formulated his vision in his famous book “Our Common Future” (L’Avenir en commun), the updated version of which was reissued on November 6, 2026, topping the bestseller lists in France. The book includes more than a thousand proposals based on the philosophy of “break” with the existing regime, by calling for the establishment of a “sixth republic” through a constituent assembly that would abolish the absolute powers of the president.
The book's economic and social program is based on comprehensive environmental planning, lowering the retirement age to 60 years, raising the minimum wage, and imposing progressive taxes on major wealth, as well as adopting independent diplomacy that calls for exiting the integrated military leadership of NATO and rejecting annexation policies in the Palestinian territories.
Read the opinion polls towards 2027
Digital indicators issued by opinion measurement institutes in France show an increasing dynamism for Mélenchon as the presidential election scheduled for April 2027 approaches. The results of a poll conducted by the Cluster 17 Institute for the Politico website and published on November 11, 2026 indicate that Mélenchon crossed the twenty percent threshold for the first time, achieving 20.5 percent of voting intentions in the first round, ranking second behind a female candidate. Marine Le Pen National Rally.
These numbers intersect with Toluna Harris Interactive barometer data published for the RTL and M6 networks on November 9, 2026, which gives Mélenchon 19 percent of voting intentions and places him in the position of qualifying for the second round in all assumed scenarios.
Before that, the Ipsos poll published on the Ipsos website on October 24, 2026 showed that he obtained 17 percent, with these studies together indicating that the biggest challenge he faces lies in the second round, as current expectations give the advantage to Marine Le Pen in the event of a direct confrontation between them.
