Mélenchon says Russia must leave Ukraine but repeats call to consult populations on any border change

Jean-Luc Mélenchon said on Wednesday, November 11, that Russia must withdraw from Ukraine. He also repeated that any change of borders requires asking the populations concerned. The remark came at a war memorial in Gentioux, in the Creuse, on Armistice Day, France 24 reported. It followed four days of criticism of comments he made at a campaign rally in Le Bourget on November 7, in which he named "the population of the Donbass" in connection with any territorial concessions. Ukraine's foreign ministry spokesman, Heorhii Tykhyi, replied that referendums organized under occupation are a tool of annexation. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called Mélenchon "the Kremlin's spokesman." La France Insoumise said the remarks had been distorted and that it is for Ukrainians to decide which populations would be consulted.

This article is based on sources opened in full. They include France 24's November 11 report, a Sud Ouest dispatch with AFP dated November 8, Euronews on November 9–10, and a franceinfo/France 2 report on November 10. French and translated quotations are 567 Politics translations unless the original wording is kept for precision. No official finding of wrongdoing is at issue here; the dispute is over political statements and their meaning.

What Mélenchon said at Le Bourget#

Mélenchon, the LFI candidate in the 2027 presidential election, spoke on Saturday, November 7, at Le Bourget in Seine-Saint-Denis. Organizers said the rally drew more than 20,000 people, according to Sud Ouest/AFP. France 2, as quoted by franceinfo, recorded this passage:

"Nous n'acceptons pas qu'on envisage une paix avec des concessions territoriales en Ukraine sans qu'on demande aux populations concernées si elles sont d'accord pour se trouver de ce côté-ci de la frontière ou de l'autre. La population du Donbass, qui a le droit de savoir si elle veut être ukrainienne ou russe."

In English: we do not accept that a peace with territorial concessions in Ukraine should be envisaged without asking the populations concerned whether they agree to find themselves on this side of the border or the other. The population of the Donbass, which has the right to know whether it wants to be Ukrainian or Russian.

Sud Ouest/AFP reported a closely matching formulation and said he also asked, "Qui a le droit de savoir si elle (la population) veut être ukrainienne ou russe ?" — who has the right to know whether the population wants to be Ukrainian or Russian. The same dispatch said he pledged that an LFI government would commit "franchement dans le règlement de l'invasion russe en Ukraine," frankly in the settlement of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv officially rejects any concession on the Donbass, much of which Russia occupies, Sud Ouest/AFP noted.

The wording matters because later LFI officials said he had not clearly confined a consultation to Donbass residents. The sentences published by France 2 and AFP both name "the population of the Donbass" immediately after "the populations concerned." Whether that is a proposal for a Donbass-only vote, or a looser reference to people affected by a border change, is the point on which LFI, Kyiv and Barrot disagree. This article quotes the published wording and the competing readings rather than choosing one as the only possible meaning.

Kyiv: Ukrainians already voted on their borders in 1991#

Tykhyi replied on X on Monday, November 9. According to Euronews, he wrote that Ukrainians had "déjà tranché la question des frontières de leur pays" in the 1991 independence referendum. In other words, they had already settled the question of their country's borders. He added that Russia had chosen to "faire fi du choix des Ukrainiens en envahissant l'Ukraine," to disregard Ukrainians' choice by invading. "Les 'référendums' organisés sous occupation constituent un outil d'annexion, et non l'expression de la volonté du peuple," he said: referendums organized under occupation are a tool of annexation, not the expression of the people's will. "Aucun pays civilisé et démocratique n'accepterait jamais cela à ses propres frontières ; cela ne devrait donc pas être proposé aux Ukrainiens": no civilized and democratic country would ever accept that at its own borders, so it should not be proposed to Ukrainians.

Euronews noted that Moscow has already organized what it called sham consultations in annexed Crimea and in the four southeastern Ukrainian regions it partially controls. Those procedures have been rejected by Kyiv and by much of the international community. Those characterizations are Euronews's and Kyiv's; this article does not independently adjudicate the 2022 occupation votes.

Franceinfo/France 2 summarized Kyiv's message as being addressed directly to Mélenchon: "Les 'référendums' sous occupation sont un outil d'annexion."

Barrot: "the Kremlin's spokesman"#

Barrot, speaking on RTL/Public Sénat on Sunday, November 8, went further than a disagreement over procedure. "Il s'est tout simplement fait le porte-parole du Kremlin," he said, according to Sud Ouest/AFP and Euronews: he has quite simply made himself the Kremlin's spokesman. "Partout dans le monde, le Kremlin essaie de convaincre les chefs d'État et de gouvernement qu'au fond le Donbass est russe et que la guerre d'agression est une guerre de libération du Donbass." Everywhere in the world, he said, the Kremlin is trying to convince heads of state and government that the Donbass is fundamentally Russian. He said the Kremlin also presents the war of aggression as a war to liberate the Donbass. He called the remarks "d'une gravité sans précédent" and said they "le disqualifie définitivement pour exercer les fonctions auxquelles il aspire" — they disqualify him once and for all from the office to which he aspires.

On Tuesday, November 10, Barrot repeated the criticism on franceinfo. According to the France 2 report, he said Mélenchon "réutilise et défend les positions que Vladimir Poutine a utilisées pour lancer sa guerre d'agression russe en Ukraine que toute la communauté internationale dénonce comme étant illégale." In Barrot's words, Mélenchon is reusing and defending the positions Vladimir Putin used to launch his war of aggression in Ukraine. Barrot said the entire international community denounces that war as illegal.

Those are Barrot's political judgments, not a legal finding. Mélenchon has not been charged with any offense in connection with the remarks. Sud Ouest/AFP noted that he has often been criticized for questioning the legitimacy of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky or for denouncing Ukrainian deep strikes; those earlier controversies are not retried here.

LFI's response: the speech was distorted, and any referendum is for Ukrainians to design#

On Monday, November 9, according to France 2, Mélenchon said he had taken up Zelensky's own position, because the Ukrainian president has spoken in favor of a referendum. France 2 noted a problem with that comparison: Zelensky's statement referred to a consultation of all of Ukraine, not of the Donbass alone. Étienne Leenhardt, head of France Télévisions' foreign desk, told France 2 that a Donbass-only vote would raise a problem of "représentativité," because about half the population has fled in recent years because of the war. It would also raise a problem of "transparence," he said, because the area is under Russian administrative and military control. Those are a journalist's analytical points, clearly attributed, not official Ukrainian figures verified for this article against a census or displacement dataset.

On Tuesday, November 10, LFI deputy Arnaud Le Gall, a member of the National Assembly's foreign affairs committee who represents the Val-d'Oise, offered a tighter reading of the Le Bourget speech. "Il n'y a rien qui, dans le discours, atteste qu'il a clairement dit : 'C'est les habitants du Donbass'. Il est évident que s'il devait y avoir un référendum, c'est aux Ukrainiens de décider quelles sont les populations concernées," he said, according to franceinfo/France 2. There is nothing in the speech, he argued, that clearly says "it is the inhabitants of the Donbass"; if there were to be a referendum, it is obviously for Ukrainians to decide which populations are concerned.

France 2 reported that LFI said the previous day it would continue military support to Ukraine for as long as the country faces Russia's illegal aggression. Euronews, writing before that clarification, had said Ukraine occupies little space in LFI's program compared with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The later LFI statement on continued military support is the more recent official line opened for this article.

Mélenchon's Wednesday remarks in Gentioux were a further attempt to set the record. He said he was restating his position "puisqu'on m'a cherché noise sur le sujet" — because people had picked a quarrel with him on the subject — and that Russia must leave Ukraine, "where it has no business." He still affirmed that a modification of borders could not be made without asking the populations for their view, France 24 reported. That combination — withdrawal first, consultation still required for any border change — is the position he left on the record on Armistice Day. Critics can read it as a walk-back, a clarification, or a restatement; the quoted words do not, by themselves, settle which of those labels is fair.

1. 2026-11-07At Le Bourget, Mélenchon speaks of consulting "the population of the Donbass" on any territorial concessions
2. 2026-11-08Barrot, on RTL/Public Sénat, calls him the Kremlin's spokesman
3. 2026-11-09Tykhyi replies that 1991 already settled Ukraine's borders; Mélenchon says he is echoing Zelensky
4. 2026-11-10Le Gall says any referendum is for Ukrainians to design; Barrot repeats the criticism on franceinfo
5. 2026-11-11In Gentioux, Mélenchon says Russia must leave Ukraine and still requires consultation on any border change

Source: Sud Ouest/AFP, Euronews, franceinfo/France 2, France 24

Ukraine policy as a 2027 dividing line#

Euronews wrote that the war in Ukraine has become a more dividing subject as the French presidential election approaches. In mid-October, Marine Le Pen, the National Rally candidate, said she would end French financial aid to Ukraine, which she puts at six billion euros a year, if she won, Euronews reported. Zelensky replied at the time that "Madame Le Pen ne maîtrise pas très bien certains détails" of military cooperation between France and Ukraine. He defended what he called a "win-win" partnership that also benefits France's security. He said that if she understood she had been wrong, "notre relation pourrait changer." Those comments are part of a separate argument about aid, not about Donbass referendums, but they show that Ukraine policy is already a campaign issue for more than one candidate.

Macron, who is not running in 2027, led the national Armistice Day ceremony in Paris on Wednesday, his last as president. Barrot serves in Sébastien Lecornu's government. 567politics has also reported Barrot's role in France's attribution of a cyberattack to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and has covered talks and doubts around Ukraine diplomacy on a different track. Those stories are background, not evidence about the Le Bourget speech.

French party differences on Europe, NATO and Russia are real, and they should not be flattened into a single left-right score. 567politics's France spectrum chart shows selected party placements as dated editorial estimates, not a measure of Ukraine policy:

Weighing the arguments#

Three conflicts of interpretation sit on top of one another.

The first is about the text. The published quotations do name "the population of the Donbass" in the same breath as "the populations concerned." Le Gall's claim that nothing in the speech clearly says "it is the inhabitants of the Donbass" is therefore a contestable reading of words that are on the record. It is also possible, as LFI argues, that he was describing people affected by a future deal rather than designing a Donbass-only ballot. Readers can test both claims against the sentences France 2 and AFP printed.

The second is about process. Tykhyi and Leenhardt argue that a vote held in territory under Russian military and administrative control would not be a free expression of will, and that a large share of the pre-war population is no longer there. That objection does not depend on Mélenchon's intent. It would apply to any proposal for a local consultation under current conditions. LFI's later line — that Ukrainians would decide who is consulted, and that military support would continue — answers part of the charge that the party is abandoning Ukraine, but it does not answer Kyiv's objection to occupation "referendums."

The third is about analogy. Mélenchon's claim to have echoed Zelensky hinges on whether "a referendum" means the same thing in both mouths. France 2 says Zelensky was talking about a nationwide consultation. If that is right, the analogy does not hold as stated. This article did not open a primary Zelensky transcript for the specific remarks Mélenchon had in mind, so that comparison rests on France 2's account.

Barrot's "spokesman" line is a rhetorical escalation. It asserts an alignment of argument with the Kremlin, not a formal relationship. The Kremlin's own public response to Mélenchon's speech was not found in the sources opened for this article.

What is not known#

Mélenchon's full Le Bourget speech was not opened as a complete official transcript; the quotations come from France 2, AFP and the outlets that reproduced them. Tykhyi's complete X post was not embedded from the original permalink; the wording is as translated by Euronews. No representative French poll on Mélenchon's remarks, or on a Donbass consultation, was found in the window, so this report does not describe national public opinion. Displacement figures for the Donbass are attributed to Leenhardt and were not checked against a named official dataset. Le Pen's "six billion euros a year" figure is her own, as reported by Euronews, and was not audited here against the French budget.

Notes on sources and limits#

Sud Ouest's November 8 article is an AFP-based account of the rally and of Barrot's RTL/Public Sénat interview. Euronews, by Estelle Nilsson-Julien and Jean-Philippe Liabot, is the main source for Tykhyi's wording and for Le Pen and Zelensky's mid-October exchange. The franceinfo item is a France 2 report published at 10:04 p.m. on November 10 and is the source for Le Gall, for Mélenchon's November 9 comparison with Zelensky, for Leenhardt, and for LFI's statement on military support. France 24 is the source for the Gentioux remarks on November 11. Campaign-finance filings were not reviewed; the story is about public statements on foreign policy, not about donors. The site's approach to sourcing is described in the editorial standards and methodology.

Differing perspectives

Should any change to Ukraine's borders require consulting the populations concerned, including in the Donbass?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Consult the populations concerned on any border change

  Who holds it: Jean-Luc Mélenchon, La France Insoumise's 2027 presidential candidate

  Jean-Luc Mélenchon says Russia must leave Ukraine, where it has no business, but also says any change of borders requires asking the populations concerned for their view. At Le Bourget he said a peace with territorial concessions should not be envisaged without asking those populations whether they agree to find themselves on one side of the border or the other, and he named the population of the Donbass, which he said has the right to know whether it wants to be Ukrainian or Russian. On Armistice Day in Gentioux he restated both parts of that position after days of criticism.

  In their words: France 24 ↗

• Let Ukrainians design any referendum; the speech was misread

  Who holds it: La France Insoumise deputy Arnaud Le Gall and the party

  La France Insoumise deputy Arnaud Le Gall argues that the Le Bourget speech has been misread. Nothing in the speech, he said, clearly states that the people to be consulted are the inhabitants of the Donbass. If there were to be a referendum, he said, it is obviously for Ukrainians to decide which populations are concerned. LFI also said it would continue military support to Ukraine for as long as the country faces Russia's illegal aggression. On this view, Mélenchon's later statement that Russia must leave Ukraine, and LFI's support for Ukrainian control of any consultation, should be taken as the party's position, not a proposal for an occupation vote.

  In their words: franceinfo/France 2 ↗

• Reject occupation votes; 1991 already settled the borders

  Who holds it: Heorhii Tykhyi, spokesman for Ukraine's foreign ministry

  Ukraine's foreign ministry spokesman, Heorhii Tykhyi, argues that Ukrainians already settled the question of their country's borders in the 1991 independence referendum, and that Russia chose to disregard that choice by invading. In his words, referendums organized under occupation are a tool of annexation, not the expression of the people's will. No civilized and democratic country would accept that at its own borders, he said, so it should not be proposed to Ukrainians. On this view, consulting Donbass residents under current conditions would not be a free vote on a border. It would ratify conquest.

  In their words: Euronews ↗

• Reject the remarks as aligned with Kremlin talking points

  Who holds it: French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot

  French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot argues that Mélenchon's remarks go beyond a dispute over peace terms. He said Mélenchon has quite simply made himself the Kremlin's spokesman. Everywhere in the world, Barrot said, the Kremlin tries to convince leaders that the Donbass is basically Russian and that the war of aggression is a war to liberate the Donbass. He later said Mélenchon is reusing and defending the positions Vladimir Putin used to launch his war of aggression in Ukraine, which Barrot said the entire international community denounces as illegal. He called the remarks of unprecedented gravity and said they disqualify Mélenchon from the office he seeks.

  In their words: Sud Ouest/AFP ↗

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