Latest news with #Jean-LucMélenchon
Middle East Eye
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Leader of left-leaning French party says country must recognise Palestinian state
The leader of the left-leaning Le France Insoumise party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said the siege on Gaza must be lifted, reported Al Jazeera Arabic on Monday. Melenchon also said France must immediately recognise a Palestinian state to thwart Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu's war on Gaza. He added that the French government allows Netanyahu to do whatever he wants, and he [Melenchin] refuses to bow down to him. He also said that Israel had committed piracy on Monday morning in international waters by detaining everybody on board a ship carrying humanitarian aid. He commended the bravery of the crew on board, which includes climate and political activist Greta Thunberg and a member of the European Parliament, Rima Hassan.
LeMonde
28-05-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann: 'I will not take part in a primary' for the 2027 presidential election
As left-wing and Green leaders call for a primary to pick a joint candidate for the 2027 French presidential election, Member of the European Parliament Raphaël Glucksmann rejected this strategy – just like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the radical-left party, La France Insoumise (LFI). The founder of the Socialist-allied Place Publique movement, who came in third – and on top on the left – in the 2024 European elections, does not want to suggest that LFI's platform could be reconciled with his own project, which he will begin to present on June 23. He gave Le Monde a preview.
Saba Yemen
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Saba Yemen
France: Massive demonstration in Paris in support of Gaza
Paris - Saba: The French capital, Paris, witnessed a massive demonstration today, Sunday, in support of Gaza and in rejection of Israeli practices in its ongoing war on the Strip since October 2023. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former French MP, shared a photo of the protest on platform "X," along with another picture of himself among the crowds. He wrote: "The youth are sending a message from Paris: 'Do not allow a genocide in Gaza... Stop it, you can do it. The ruling generation must hear this call.'" Protesters chanted slogans in support of Gaza, including: "Israel, get out, Palestine is not yours," and "We are all Gaza." Facebook Whatsapp Telegram Email Print more of (International)
France 24
21-05-2025
- Politics
- France 24
What AI detection tools got wrong in the case of a photo tweeted by a French politician
"I bet a 100 bucks that this is AI,' reads a comment on a May 11 tweet by the three-time French presidential candidate and far-left politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The comment, left by an account named Lapin du Futur (Futuristic Rabbit), accuses the leader of the French far-left political party France Unbowed (LFI) of having used artificial intelligence to modify a photo he shared of an anti-Islamophobia protest that took place the same day in Paris. One of the photos tweeted by Mélenchon shows him standing with several deputies from his party on the front lines of a protest. Behind them, there are thousands of protesters brandishing many different flags, including the French flag, the Palestinian flag and LFI's flag. A number of social media users, like Lapin du Futur, claimed that the photo was generated by AI and that the French flags were added. Lapin du Futur's post alone garnered more than two million views. "The prompt [Editor's note: the request provided to AI software] was 'add French flags'. None of the French flags are real,' claimed another social media account in a post that garnered more than 700,000 views. Some social media users have pointed to certain details in the photo that often indicate that an image has been AI-generated, like people's hands looking strange or deformed. In the case of this photo, one protester holding up a flag appears to have only four fingers. Another person seems to have six fingers. Another social media user shared screenshots from an AI-detection tool, which determined that it was 'likely' that the image was generated by AI. AI-detection tool Sightengine determined that there was a 90% probability that the image was generated by AI. Another tool, Decopy AI, said there was a 95% probability. And yet, there were French flags However, this image was not AI-generated and the French flags were not added to the image. No other elements were either. A number of LFI deputies also took to social media to post photos taken during the protest on Place de la Bastille in Paris, including Thomas Portes and Aly Diouara. Other accounts with links to France Unbowed also shared images. In all of the photos, you can see several French flags held by protesters. You can also see the French flags in videos of the protest posted by French media outlet BFM and images published by Agence France-Presse (AFP) on their website and YouTube page. Some social media users have also raised questions about the number of protesters in the photo, claiming that the numbers have been artificially inflated. However, the photos by other sources show the same crowd sizes on Place de la Bastille. The Paris police prefecture counted 3,700 protesters, while protest organisers said that 15,000 people had attended. As for the hands that appear to have four or six fingers, a close verification of the image reveals that each hand does actually have five fingers. If you look closely at the photo, then you can see the fifth finger of the hand holding the flagpole, partially hidden by the pole. As for the other hand, what looks like a sixth finger is actually an effect created by the angle of the hand and the shadow cast on the person's wrist (see more details below). False positives detected from minor edits to contrast and colours The FRANCE 24 Observers team contacted the press service of France Unbowed (LFI), who refuted all accusations that the image had been AI-generated. However, the party did clarify that 'contrast was added, the brightness was reduced and the vibrancy of the photo was accentuated' during the editing process. It turns out that basic edits like this can actually confuse tools meant to detect AI-generated images like Sightengine, which was cited by a number of social media users who said Mélenchon's photo was false. Our team contacted Sightengine, who confirmed that their tool detected both 'images completely generated by AI but also real photos that contained elements generated or modified by AI' like some of the above edits. "It might flag partial modifications or small edits or improvements carried out using generative AI tools,' said representatives of Sightengine. France Unbowed sent the original image – without any changes to contrast or colours – to our team. When we ran it through Sightengine, it didn't detect any possible use of AI. This supports the theory that the tool initially concluded that the photo was likely AI-generated only because of the colour and contrast correction. The same is true for the tool which initially concluded that there was a 99.13% probability that the photo posted by Mélenchon was AI-generated. In an email to our team sent on May 15, the company behind the tool said that its product 'may have some errors in the accuracy of multi-person photo recognition', indicating that it was primarily a tool 'aimed at the recognition of single-person photos'. The company promised that they would 'make immediate improvements' to the tool, following this error. 'There is AI integrated into almost all photo editing tools' "Today, there are elements of generative AI integrated into nearly all of the [photo editing] tools that we use,' said Emmanuelle Saliba, who runs the investigation bureau at GetReal, a company that detects deepfakes. The company was founded by Hany Farid, an expert in the analysis of manipulated photos and videos. Saliba explained that Photoshop, for example, "uses AI in the 'enhance' function as well as in editing". That's also the case for Lightroom, the photo editing programme that was used by France Unbowed. Lightroom explains on its site that it uses AI to improve the sharpness of images or to adjust " colours and tones'. After a careful analysis of the image using both detection algorithms and analysis of the shadows, GetReal concluded that the photo posted by Mélenchon is 'real'. A number of other AI-detection tools also did not conclude that the flags were AI-generated, including the algorithms developed by a European research and development project focused on disinformation analysis. "None of these algorithms shows any sign of AI generation in these images,' said Denis Teyssou, the editorial lead at AFP's Medialab and "We are looking for something tangible, especially signs left by image generators in the signal,' he said, unlike other AI detectors, which might say that an image is likely generated by AI because of small edits on colour or contrast. Due to the proliferation of audio, video, and images generated by AI, numerous free AI-detection tools are now available. However, it is important to remain prudent as these tools can produce false positives, wrongly identifying content as artificially generated. This is a major challenge as most of these tools do not explain their criteria for detection, nor the technical aspects that led to images being detected as AI-generated.
El Chorouk
29-04-2025
- Politics
- El Chorouk
The Mosque Crime In France Exposes Retailleau's Racism.
The handling of the horrific murder of a member of the Muslim community in a mosque in France by the French Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, revealed that the minister in François Bayrou's government practices discrimination based on religion and race among French people. This fact has been reached by various political and media circles in France. The Interior Minister, who is also the Minister of Religions in France, did not visit the mosque where the horrific crime occurred until two days later. This was considered an unacceptable misstep and a resounding scandal for the French state (because Retailleau is a minister representing the Republic), which was not only criticized by his political opponents but also by media outlets known for their loyalty to the right and far-right, such as 'BFM TV'. In a talk show, journalist Benjamin Duhamel of the aforementioned television channel asked Retailleau, 'Why did your visit to the mosque where the crime occurred take two days, and you only expressed your position hours later with a tweet on the 'X' platform, while you continued your party work normally?' The minister's response was weak and unconvincing to the journalist: 'I waited until I was sure and received the investigation elements.' Then the journalist surprised Minister Rotaio with a similar incident, but he acted differently, as happened in a crime that occurred one day before the mosque crime in the city of Nantes, where a high school student there was fatally stabbed. Retailleau, along with the Minister of Education, former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, rushed to the scene on the same day, while he was two days late for the mosque crime. Retailleau found no justification other than saying that the crime that occurred in the high school was more dangerous, according to him. This prompted journalist Duhamel, who is also known for his far-right positions, to accuse the minister of practicing a double standard, saying: 'How would you have acted if the murder had occurred in a church or a synagogue?' Retailleau's handling of the crime angered the victim's family's lawyer, who said that 'there is no doubt that this crime was a terrorist attack. It is clear that the national police must take over this case without delay,' and stressed that 'the victim must receive the same treatment as any other citizen.' The provocations of the French Interior Minister did not stop at his disrespect for the Muslim community in France and treating them as second-class French citizens, but extended to his belittling of the solidarity stand that took place last Sunday, which was called for by the leader of the 'La France Insoumise' party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Retailleau accused the left-wing parties of exploiting the mosque crime incident, in which a French person associated with the far-right was involved, to achieve political gains, which did not convince his interviewer, who was also surprised by this position. In the solidarity stand, Jean-Luc Mélenchon strongly criticized Bruno Retailleau for continuing to target Muslims even during the difficult times France is going through, in reference to the mosque crime incident. With great disgust, Mélenchon addressed Bruno Retailleau saying: 'And in this sensitive circumstance, the Interior Minister comes out and says down with the veil!' in reference to his war on the symbols of the Islamic religion. While the French agree on using the term 'Islamophobia' against any position, behavior, hatred, or prejudice against Muslims, the French Interior Minister comes out to announce his rejection of using this term because it involves ideological considerations, according to him, and prefers to use the term 'anti-Muslim act,' which confirms that the man is obsessed with hostility towards Islam and Muslims. The French Interior Minister, who is also the Minister of Religions, had previously refused to accept an invitation for Iftar extended to him by the Dean of the Paris Mosque, Chems-Eddine Hafiz, last Ramadan, while his counterpart in the government, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, accepted it. Retailleau justified his refusal by saying that Iftar is an 'unofficial' task, which was considered a flimsy excuse, because he had previously accepted invitations from Christian and Jewish religious figures, which are documented with photos.
