Mélenchon mentions Karabakh at Le Bourget: “the right to know whether it wants to be Armenian or not”
- Published
- Place
- Le Bourget, France
- Event date
- Past event —
Summary
At his big rally in Le Bourget on 7 November, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a candidate in the 2027 French presidential election, mentioned Nagorno-Karabakh. Opposing any peace deal in Ukraine that would hand over territory without asking the people who live there, he added: “And the same goes for Karabakh, which has the right to know whether it wants to be Armenian or not, and so on.” The line appears in the written version of the speech published on his website. According to Nouvelles d’Arménie, he is the first presidential candidate to mention the Armenians of Karabakh in a campaign speech. He gave no detail on how such a choice would work, on the return of refugees or on the Armenian prisoners held in Baku.
Analysis
The line comes in a passage on Ukraine and the right of peoples to decide their own fate: Karabakh appears only as an example, after Donbas. More than 100,000 Armenians left the region after Azerbaijan’s offensive of September 2023, and talks between Yerevan and Baku now centre on normalisation, borders and transport links, according to Nouvelles d’Arménie. The comparison with Donbas can be debated, as the legal contexts differ. The rally drew some 20,000 supporters, according to Le JDD.
Possible consequences
The issue could enter the 2027 campaign, but no other candidate has mentioned it in a speech so far, according to Nouvelles d’Arménie.
