The political class in France have rounded on Jean-Luc Mélenchon for his failure to condemn Hamas’s attack against Israel. The far-left firebrand, a Gallic Jeremy Corbyn, reacted to Saturday’s massacre of Israeli civilians by Islamist terrorists with a tweet:

‘All the violence unleashed against Israel and Gaza proves only one thing: violence only produces and reproduces itself. We are horrified and our thoughts and compassion go out to all the distraught victims of all this. There must be a ceasefire.’

Mélenchon and the majority of his party, La France Insoumise (LFI), have since doubled down on their remarks, drawing condemnation from political opponents, Jewish groups and media commentators. Prime minister Elisabeth Borne derided the ‘revolting ambiguities’ of Mélenchon’s party, whose ‘anti-Zionism’, she said, was ‘also a way of masking anti-Semitism.’

As far as Qatar is concerned, however, there has never been any ambiguity about whose side it is on in the war between Israel and Hamas

Mélenchon’s ambiguity towards Israel has increased in recent years as he and his party have shamelessly courted identity politics and encouraged the victimhood of a small minority of France’s six million Muslims.

As far as Qatar is concerned, however, there has never been any ambiguity about whose side it is on in the war between Israel and Hamas. As terrorists hunted down and executed Israeli men, women and children on Saturday, parading the bodies of some of their victims through the streets, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement in which it stated that Israel is ‘solely responsible for the ongoing escalation due to its continuous violations of the rights of the Palestinian people, including its recent repeated intrusions into the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the Israeli police’.

Qatar also demanded that the international community ‘compel Israel to stop its blatant violations of international law’ and the Gulf State also proudly reaffirmed its ‘consistent position in support of the Palestinian cause’.

This support was discussed in the US Congress in 2014 at a joint hearing before the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa. Having noted the enthusiastic championing of Hamas by Turkey’s new president Recep Erdogan, Congress described Qatar as ‘perhaps the largest financial patron of Hamas’. This was down to the munificence of the Emir of Qatar, who in 2012 was the first head of state to visit Gaza in years. He promised over $400 million (£325 million) of infrastructure money to Hamas.

The hearing in Washington was informed that ‘Qatar funds Hamas’ strikes in Gaza, as well as its project, building terror tunnels from which to attack Israel rather than building up Gaza for the Palestinian people….we cannot continue to allow Qatari funds to go to terrorist groups, Hamas or any other.’

But, in spite of those words, the funding has continued. In 2018, Qatar delivered $15 million (£12.2 million) to Gaza, which they described as entirely ‘humanitarian aid’. It was brought to Gaza by the Qatari envoy, Mohamed Al Emadi, who said: ‘The policy of the state of Qatar in support of the Palestinian cause during the past years leaves no room for doubt or explanation.’

At the start of 2021, Qatar pledged to double its aid to Gaza to $360 million (£290 million), a decision that Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh called a ‘fraternal blessing’, adding: ‘It proves the depth of the ties between the Palestinian and Qatari peoples.’

These ties were questioned by Marine Le Pen during a radio interview on Tuesday morning. The leader of the National Rally alluded to Qatar’s financing of Hamas but also the many millions it has poured into the French suburbs this century, money which has been used to build mosques and prayer rooms, with the objective, according to some, of creating ‘a parallel society’.

Le Pen has previous with Qatar; in 2015 the Gulf state initiated legal action against her then second-in-command, Florian Philippot, after he accused Qatar of funding ‘Islamism that kills’, referring to the slaughter of the Charlie Hebdo staff and the murderous attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris that year.

Francois Hollande’s Socialist government took the side of the Qataris’ and backed their action, but the European parliament – where Philippot was an MEP – refused to lift his immunity from prosecution and defended his right to free speech.

It is not just Le Pen who has voiced concern about Qatar’s activities in France. In 2015, François Fillon, the centre-right Republican party’s candidate in the 2017 presidential election, claimed that Qatar’s ‘role is ambiguous’ in the fight against Islamist terrorism. Another Republican MP, Bruno Le Maire, demanded a review of France’s relationship with Qatar to ensure it had no ‘terrorist networks or discourse’. Bruno Le Maire subsequently defected to Emmanuel Macron and has been his economy minister since 2017.

France’s ties with Qatar have strengthened under Macron’s leadership, and in September last year the Gulf state signed an $1.5 billion (£1.2 billion) investment deal with Total Energies (the first of its kind with a foreign investor). The agreement will give the French energy giant a 9.3 per cent stake in the North Field South gas project, which reputedly contains 10 per cent of the world’s known natural gas reserve. Two months later, Qatar staged the football World Cup and of all the European nations competing it was France who was the most reluctant to criticise their hosts about their human rights records.

Jean-Luc Melenchon deserves to be vilified for his ‘revolting ambiguities’ but will prime minister Borne also speak harshly of Qatar, a country she visited in 2017 when she was Macron’s minister of transport?

Qatar’s reaction to Hamas’s attack on Israel was an apology for terrorism. Will France and the West condemn the Qataris or will they once more turn a blind eye in the cause of black gold?