A French MP from the left-wing coalition has been caught red-handed buying synthetic drugs. Admitting the facts, he said he would seek addiction treatment. The episode highlights the ambiguous relationship that a whole fringe of the left-wing political class has with drug use, where they seem to accept behaviours that are punishable by law.
Andy Kerbrat, a member of parliament for the far-left La France Insoumise, was caught by the police on Friday, October 18th in Paris buying the synthetic drug 3-MMC—a powerful, recently manufactured psychostimulant related to amphetamines. The product acquired by the MP is known to stimulate the libido and induce hallucinations. It is highly addictive.
On Tuesday, October 22nd, the 34-year-old MP admitted the offence at the National Assembly and apologised. But to his political opponents, the affair should not stop there. Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who pointed to the “duty to set an example” of MPs, called on the MP to “draw the consequences of his actions”—a way of urging him to resign. Laurent Jacobelli, a member of the Rassemblement National (RN), echoed his sentiments: “It’s possible that he’s ill, and that he needs treatment, why not. But above all he’s guilty, he’s broken the law, and for someone who’s supposed to write it, that’s pretty embarrassing. If he had any honour, he would resign.”
Kerbrat’s defence was to make amends and undertake to follow a treatment protocol—without for a single moment considering resigning. In his approach, he was supported by a number of left-wing political figures. The leader of La France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, offered the elected representative his “very friendly support in this fight” against addiction. “MP Andy Kerbrat bought an illegal product. He has admitted the fact and apologised to our movement and to his constituents. He has only done damage to himself,” Mélenchon added—forgetting a little too easily that buying drugs feeds an illegal trade with countless ramifications, from prostitution to organised crime. Green MP Sandrine Rousseau also came to Kerbrat’s rescue, judging the outraged reactions to the MP’s drug purchases to be disproportionate. “If he had cancer, we wouldn’t look at it the same way,” she declared, sparking outrage on the web from cancer patients who pointed out that you can’t choose cancer, whereas you can choose drugs.
Another counter-fire chosen by Kerbrat’s comrades is his sexual orientation. Kerbrat is gay, and 3-MMC use is common in homosexual male circles. According to Clément Gérome, of the French Observatory for Drugs and Addictive Substances, the substance is usually consumed “by men who have sex with men in contexts that combine group sexuality and the use of synthetic products, commonly known as chemsex.” As a result, Inter-LGBT, which brings together all the LGBT rights associations in France, denounced the homophobic insults that have targeted the MP since his arrest and public confession—without ever clearly condemning the purchase of synthetic drugs. This strategy has been denounced by Arnaud Abel, himself president of the LGBT association Fiertés citoyennes. In an interview with the weekly Le Point, he criticised the fact that Kerbrat’s position in his press release “revolves solely around his sexual orientation and that he wishes to pass himself off as a victim in order to avoid taking political responsibility for his actions.”
The reactions on the Left in defence of the MP are emblematic of the sick relationship that a large part of the French political class has with drugs, under the guise of freedom and a refusal to victimise drug users. One of Kerbrat’s colleagues argues that we should “seek to treat those who are victims of this disease rather than point the finger at them.” On the Left, there is a perfect continuity between this type of discourse and that used in relation to crime: turning offenders into victims and making excuses for them. In 2021, La France Insoumise MP Louis Boyard admitted in all good conscience that he had dealt drugs to finance his law studies, without being overly shocked by the paradox.
However, drug use is not exclusive to the Left. Before Andy Kerbrat, MP Emmanuel Pellerin, then a member of Emmanuel Macron’s party, admitted in January 2023 to investigative journal Mediapart that he had ‘consumed cocaine before and after his election to the Assembly.’ And according to their investigations, in December 2023, a ministerial adviser was nabbed for his drug use and the deliveries he received at his workplace.
