“Yes, there is an integration problem in France”: Edouard Philippe offers Jean-Luc Mélenchon a debate on immigration

Édouard Philippe persists and signs. The Horizons presidential candidate maintained his comments on immigration made on the set of TF1, which had earned him strong criticism from rebellious leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “Do we have the right in France to say things as they are?” reacted the mayor of Le Havre, during a trip to Zuydcoote beach (North), Wednesday November 4. "Yes, there is an integration problem in our country. And we wouldn't have the right to say it? But who thinks that integration works well in France?" he said to journalists.

"In the images that we saw of the looting, there were in fact a certain number and a significant number of young French people, no doubt, whom I consider to be French, with an immigrant background, declared the former Prime Minister in particular, in TF1's 8 p.m. program. "Which reflects a subject that we must look eye to eye." Jean-Luc Mélenchon then denounced "racist slander from Edouard Philippe" and a "disgusting speech." An indignation shared by Olivier Faure, for whom Edouard Philippe "drifts in the dark waters of racist prejudices".

Édouard Philippe also denounced “a thought police imposed by the extreme left, imposed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon”. The former Prime Minister accused the rebellious leader of being "the first to use the codes of anti-Semitism", "the first to call into question republican universalism" and "the first to have reused (...) the term racialized". The Horizons candidate also proposed a debate to the LFI candidate. “If Mr. [Jean-Luc] Mélenchon wants a debate to discuss these subjects, I am his man, whenever he wants, wherever he wants,” declared Édouard Philippe. “We must debate what he plans as a social project. Of this shameful communitarianism on which he tries to prosper."