What is the “watermelon left” that Olivier Véran talks about (among others)?

The expression shocked all or part of the left. In wanting to attack the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), Olivier Véran decided to speak of “the watermelon left”. “I know what the left is called – sorry, it’s not very nice to say that – the watermelon left, green outside and red inside, it’s above all LFI post-Trotskyism with a little green varnish around”, he thus declared on the set of LCI, this Sunday, July 24, 2022. The former Minister of Health and Solidarity did not stop there: he decided to erect a wall between the opponents of Nupes and the famous “left of government”.

“The left of government, the one that is capable of making difficult decisions, this left, I can’t find it today in Nupes, there are some in Nupes, they will reveal themselves, they will come off , at some point the posture of Mélenchon will be unbearable for them”, he therefore asserted. So many attacks which, in the eyes of the uninitiated, could seem relatively classic in the context of the political game. However, informs Le Parisien on its site, such remarks have greatly annoyed the deputies of Nupes. In question ? The authorship of the expression.

It was Jean-Marie Le Pen who, among the first, spoke of the “watermelon left”. He then spoke of the environmentalist party, “green on the outside and red on the inside”, like a watermelon, as this video extract illustrates.

“To take up a formula from Jean-Marie Le Pen, there they are. If the extreme right were not at the gates of power through their fault, it would only be pathetic. There, it’s dramatic”, also commented Benjamin Lucas, Generation.s deputy in the National Assembly.

This is not the first time that the majority has taken up terms or concepts from the far right. During the previous mandate, Gérald Darmanin had thus appropriated the notion of “wildness”…