[Article to be found in the autumn issue, at your newsstand or by subscription.] Jean-Luc Mélenchon publicly voiced his disagreement with the homophobic program of the ruling party in Senegal. But since that party took action, his own, La France insoumise, has appeared much more discreet.
In May 2024, in front of students gathered in Dakar, Jean-Luc Mélenchon asserts his disagreement with Ousmane Sonko. The Senegalese Prime Minister has just denounced the emphasis given to LGBT issues in the programs of international institutions, sometimes erected by them as a condition of financial partnerships. The leader of La France insoumise (LFI) replies to him bluntly: “I am the first French legislator to have introduced a bill concerning the possibility of same-sex marriage. […] I stand by the political position I chose and I will not seek to impose it on you.”
Two years later, the disagreement takes on another dimension. The African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (Pastef), Ousmane Sonko’s party, came to power in 2024 with Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s election to the presidency. He then moves from words to deeds. In March 2026, the Senegalese Parliament doubles the prison sentences for homosexuality, rising from five to ten years. “This is the first law I personally submitted to the National Assembly”, rejoices Ousmane Sonko.
While arrests multiply in the country, putting LGBT associations from Dakar to Paris on alert, the mélenchonie, typically quick to denounce human rights abuses, remains very discreet. On May 19, the eurodeputy Manon Aubry finally expresses on X her “profound disagreement with this persecution”. This evident unease was highlighted by têtu· in its editorial of the previous issue, dedicated to our adelphes of Senegal. The insoumis deputy Andy Kerbrat, though engaged on these issues, protested, calling têtu· the “journal of the gays of the right”. How far is the movement willing to contort itself to justify this companionship?
For several years, LFI has maintained privileged ties with the sovereigntist and pan-Africanist party, founded in 2014 by Ousmane Sonko. They converge around a discourse of breaking with the established political order and a critique of the domination relations inherited from colonization.
Their rapprochement materialized during the Senegalese presidential election. Facing Macky Sall, in power since 2012 and accused of authoritarian drift, the duo formed by Ousmane Sonko and Bassirou Diomaye Faye embodies the alternation and appeals to the youth. A year before the poll, in a context of repression of the opposition and waves of arrests, Ousmane Sonko is imprisoned after his conviction for “corruption of the youth” in a case where he is accused of rape. Jean-Luc Mélenchon then takes his defense. “In Senegal the opposition leader Ousmane Sonko is threatened with ineligibility. This rightly alarms the friends of a country long a model of democracy,” he writes on X. “In a context where France was accused by the Senegalese people of supporting Macky Sall, we wanted to embody a voice defending democratic renewal”, explains today to têtu· the deputy Arnaud Le Gall, who advises the leader of the radical left on African questions.
The homophobia of Ousmane Sonko, however, is not a discovery that follows his ascent to power. Since the early 2020s, the future Prime Minister does not hesitate to stir the pot in a country where anti-LGBT protests are multiplying at the call of Islamist organizations. “The law criminalizing homosexuality will be one of the first I will have voted”, he tweets as early as 2022.
Arnaud Le Gall nevertheless refutes any wavering in his party’s diplomacy: “We supported democratic alternation but at no time did we endorse Pastef’s program. We have been very clear on condemning homophobia in Senegal and we have not formalized an alliance with Pastef” he insists. The deputy also notes that LFI refused to attend a congress of the ruling party in June. Very clear, really? In France, where a significant Senegalese diaspora lives, several episodes tell of a position that is much more uncomfortable…
In Saint-Denis, abstention
In the capital of the Seine-Saint-Denis, led since March by the Insoumis Bally Bagayoko, Socialist Mathieu Hanotin proposed to the municipal council on June 25 a “motion of support from the city of Saint-Denis to LGBT+ people persecuted in Senegal and reaffirming the universality of human rights”. A symbolic initiative apparently quite consensual. But the Insoumise deputy for community life, Diangou Traoré, worries that the text addresses the Senegalese diaspora directly: “We prefer to avoid any formulation that could be interpreted as challenging people having privileged relations with the Senegalese people”, she argues to the microphone.
The debate, held at the end of the session, prolongs. Jimmy Markoum, Communist elected from the majority, denounces the “neocolonial blind spot” of the proposal. “To challenge, in such clear terms in the formulations used, the national sovereignty of a country heir to colonial domination is illegitimate and counterproductive”, he pleads. His solution: drown the Senegalese homophobic repression in a broader denunciation of the “global conservative wave”.
“Without saying that problems exist only in Senegal, we must point out that this law sends to prison people who were not going there before the month of March!” responds Mathieu Hanotin. Bally Bagayoko agrees with Jimmy Markoum on several of his remarks, which he deems “common sense”, and points out the “shortcomings” of the socialist text. The motion is adopted, but the LFI officials abstained.
In Sarcelles, “my friend, my brother”
A few kilometers away, relations with Pastef are warm. In Sarcelles, in Val-d’Oise, the local section of the Senegalese party organizes, on June 20, a barbecue at which Alioune Sall, Senegal’s Minister of Communication until last June, who had previously lived in France, participates.
A French elected official is also along for the ride: Carlos Martens Bilongo, LFI deputy. On social networks, the duo displays their closeness, giving each other the label “my friend, my brother”. “The two have known each other for a long time”, downplays Arnaud Le Gall. And for good reason. Before the presidential election, Alioune Sall had been tasked by Ousmane Sonko with mobilizing the Senegalese diaspora in France, estimated between 200,000 and 300,000 people. The French section of Pastef claimed then 10,000 current members and played an important role in the alternation in Senegal. Could this militant force tomorrow help another campaign? “Today, we do not plan to campaign for Jean-Luc Mélenchon but if Pastef asked us, we would do it”, admits Baba Diallo, head of the local section of the party. This perhaps explains it all.
