Ukraine slams French far-left presidential hopeful Mélenchon

PARIS — The Ukrainian government clapped back at French presidential hopeful Jean-Luc Mélenchon on Monday after the far-left leader said a vote could settle territorial disputes. “‘Referendums’ under occupation are a tool of annexation, not an expression of the people’s will.

No civilised, democratic country would ever accept this for its own borders, so it should not be proposed to Ukrainians,” the foreign ministry’s spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi posted on X . He added that Ukraine previously voted in 1991, and Russia is now looking to change borders with a war.

The backlash came after Mélenchon said at a France Unbowed political rally Saturday that, if in power, he would not back territorial concessions in the war-torn country “without asking the people affected whether they agree to be on one side of the border or the other.” “The people of Donbas … have the right to decide whether they want to be Ukrainian or Russian,” he argued, referring to a region in eastern Ukraine that is the central territorial dispute of the war with Russia.