Paris (France) (AFP) – PS deputy Jérôme Guedj, who announced his candidacy for the 2027 presidential election on Thursday, is a former close friend of Jean-Luc Mélenchon who became the incarnation of the irreconcilable left after October 7, 2023.

Published on: 02/05/2026 - 1:27 p.m.

At 54, the deputy for Essonne, a department in the Paris suburbs where he spent his entire political career, found himself on the front line in the fight against anti-Semitism and in the confrontation against La France insoumise, after the refusal of the radical left party to describe the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas against Israel as "terrorist".

The MP has long been a spiritual son of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose parliamentary assistant he was when the latter was a socialist senator.

He then considered the current leader Insoumis as his mentor and likes to relate having prepared for the ENA competition in the offices of the man who had become Minister Delegate for Vocational Education.

But the two men became angry for the first time in 2008 when Jean-Luc Mélenchon left the PS. They did not speak again for 15 years before meeting again in 2022 during the creation of the left-wing Nupes alliance, which Jérôme Guedj then ardently defended.

He then believed that Mélenchon, whom he said he "loved deeply", could embody the unity of the left. But he was quickly disappointed when the tribune seemed to stir up divisions in the alliance at the time of the urban riots and the debate on pension reform.

The divorce was definitively consummated after October 7, when an LFI press release refused to qualify Hamas as a terrorist group. And even describes these attacks as an “armed offensive by Palestinian forces”.

Calling LFI a "useful idiot from Hamas", Jérôme Guedj is targeted by the Insoumis and his former mentor, who describes him in particular as "a coward of that human variety that we all know, the informers".

“The interesting thing is to see him moving around the stake where the leash of his membership holds him,” he added.

This is too much for Jérôme Guedj, from a Sephardic Jewish family and fervent defender of secularism, who refuses to be brought back to his “Jewishness”. A subject that he does not normally raise because he primarily claims to be a “left-wing republican” and “universalist”.

He then became the fervent supporter of a total break with LFI.

ex-rebel

Jérôme Guedj refuses to return to the anticipated legislative elections under the label of the new left alliance of the New Popular Front (NFP) - he is re-elected under the sole colors of the PS - and even falls out with the leadership of the party, which defends this agreement with LFI to counter the RN.

At the PS congress that followed, Jérôme Guedj called Jean-Luc Mélenchon an “anti-Semitic bastard”. If he then regrets the word "bastard", he maintains his accusations of anti-Semitism.

Long a figure on the left wing of the party, Jérôme Guedj was one of the rebellious socialist deputies of Hollande's five-year term who, in April 2014, refused to place their trust in the government of Manuel Valls.

Recognized by all for his expertise on social issues, the urban husband of the writer Emilie Frèche was on the front line in the battle against pension reform in 2023.

Having become in recent months one of the actors in the compromise with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu on the budget, he is now anchored in the reformist left dear to François Hollande, Bernard Cazeneuve or Raphaël Glucksmann, all anti-LFI, and refuses to participate in a primary with the Ecologists and the former Insoumis.

But, within his party, where he is the first to officially declare himself for 2027, Jérôme Guedj is seen as an "individualist", "attracted by the media", according to several executives.

“Guedj speaks in the name of Guedj,” quips a socialist. Another recognizes him as “a strong personality” even if he is “less supported by a political party”.

© 2026 AFP

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