A lot of people have a lot of complaints about Assassin's Creed Unity, but those of former French governmental minister Jean-Luc Mélenchon are unique: He's unhappy with the game because it paints a very unflattering portrait of the French Revolution. It's not meant to be a historically accurate game, of course, but Mélenchon told France Inter radio that it feeds on anti-Republican sentiment that's behind the rise of far-right movements in the country today.
"It is propaganda against the people, the people who are [portrayed as] barbarians, bloodthirsty savages. In 1789 there were the poor aristocrats, and they are presented as fine upstanding people," he said, as reported by the Telegraph. He described Marie Antoinette as a "cretin, who is celebrated as a poor little rich girl," and complained that "the man who was our liberator at a certain moment of the Revolution—because the Revolution lasted a long time—Robespierre, is presented as a monster."
Assassin's Creed Unity "presents an image of hatred of the Revolution, hatred of the people, hatred of the Republic which is rampant in the far-right milieu [of today]," he concluded.
Mélenchon served as France's Minister of Vocational Education from 2000 to 2002 and also ran in the 2012 Presidential election, earning 11 percent of the vote. He is currently the leader of the Left Front political party, and holds a seat in the European Parliament. Ubisoft, meanwhile, has more practical concerns to deal with: It's currently working on the third patch for the game, which was only released last week, to try to iron out the worst of the technical problems plaguing it.
