Israeli foreign and interior minister Gideon Sa’ar has barred French left-wing La France Insoumise (France Unbowed, LFI) leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the party’s parliamentary group chair Mathilde Panot from entering Israel over the party’s anti-Israel rhetoric.
The foreign ministry, in a statement on November 12, specifically noted that both had spread claims against Israel that it called blood libels, and that Mélenchon had called for French naval vessels to escort unauthorised flotillas seeking to reach Gaza.
Israel has previously restricted entry to other foreign political figures on similar grounds, LFI members among them. In February 2025, LFI MEP Rima Hassan was refused entry at Ben Gurion airport and, in April that year, Israel cancelled the visas of 27 French left-wing lawmakers and local officials.
The decision follows France’s recent administrative ban on West Bank settler leader Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, who said he was turned back at a Paris airport in early November. The French foreign ministry said Dagan, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, was banned over his “active role in implementing the settlement policy in the West Bank”.
Israeli officials described the French measure as “completely unacceptable”.
Paris had already barred Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on May 23, after footage showed him taunting detained Gaza flotilla activists, and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich on June 9 over his promotion of settlement and annexation in the West Bank.
Compte tenu des positions anti-israéliennes virulentes du parti « La France Insoumise » (LFI) et des propos scandaleux tenus par ses dirigeants, le ministre des Affaires étrangères et de l’Intérieur, Gideon Sa’ar, a décidé d’interdire d’entrée en Israël au chef de file de LFI,…
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) November 12, 2026
Mélenchon, LFI’s candidate for the 2027 French presidential election, has long been a vocal critic of Israeli policy, accusing it of genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel rejects.
LFI refused to describe the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks that triggered the Israel-Hamas war as terrorism, calling them instead “an armed offensive by Palestinian forces”.
Mélenchon has faced repeated accusations of anti-Semitism from political opponents and Jewish organisations in France, which he has always denied.
Those accusations intensified in February 2026 after a rally in Lyon on February 26 in which Mélenchon mocked the pronunciation of Jeffrey Epstein’s surname, suggesting that saying “Epstine” made it sound “more Russian”.
The remarks drew criticism from the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (Crif), whose president Yonathan Arfi called them “a conspiracy theory with real anti-Semitic overtones”.
Days later, on March 1 in Perpignan, he also mispronounced the name of social-democrat MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, a rival on the Left, before correcting himself.
At an LFI rally in Le Bourget, near Paris, on November 7, he said that, if elected, a government under his leadership would take a more confrontational approach, including the possible use of French ships to escort pro-Palestinian flotillas.
“French ships, if necessary, will escort the flotillas of citizens mobilised to assert their rights,” he wrote on X the same day.
Mélenchon responded that he had never sought to enter Israel. “I am banned from entering a territory I did not ask to enter,” he told Franceinfo, adding that he regretted the Israeli government was pursuing him in this way.
Panot posted on X, accompanied by a Palestinian flag: “Banned from entering Israel, like Jean-Luc Mélenchon. I’m still looking for the bad news. Message to the Israeli authorities: Free Palestine!”
French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot called the Israeli move demagogic.
“This demagogic decision, coming from a government that has repeatedly violated international law, plays into the hands of those who, like La France Insoumise, thrive on exploiting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he wrote on X.
He reiterated France’s support for a two-state solution.
Interdite d’entrée en Israël, comme Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Je cherche encore la mauvaise nouvelle 🇵🇸
Message aux autorités israéliennes : Libérez la Palestine ! https://t.co/2rWy0XXhaP
— Mathilde Panot (@MathildePanot) November 12, 2026
