Writing for Libération this September 17, Jean-Luc Mélenchon warned against obsessing with speculation about far-right pundit Éric Zemmour running for the presidency. For the France Insoumise (LFI) leader, it would be a mistake to “get bogged down in putrid debates with Zemmour and co.” Six days later, Mélenchon debated this same polemicist on CNEWS, a TV channel widely compared to Fox. As agreed, the first half of the evening dealt with Zemmour’s preferred themes (immigration, immigration, and immigration) while at the LFI leader’s request, the second half focused on social and ecological issues.

Ahead of Zemmour’s announcement this Tuesday that he will indeed run, some doubted whether Mélenchon hadn’t just played into his hands. Is it even possible, they asked, to have a debate — a rational exchange of arguments — with an individual who breathes lies, and who has made misogynistic and racist provocations his whole calling in life? And why agree to go on a channel that has so actively contributed to the right-wing turn in French public debate?

We might doubt the sincerity of such questions when they’re being raised by supporters of Emmanuel Macron. They had no objections when the president called Zemmour on his personal phone to comfort him after an attack, or indeed when Macron praised the “great soldier” Marshal Pétain, leader of the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime. We might question the consistency of those on the center-left who criticized Mélenchon for debating Zemmour but themselves joined this May’s protests called by far-right police unions.