Friday, February 3, 11:45 a.m. Benyamin Netanyahu meets behind closed doors a delegation of businessmen at the Hôtel du Collectionneur, a stone’s throw from Parc Monceau, in the 8e district of Paris. On his right, a man in a crumpled white shirt and blue tie (the colors of the Israeli flag): this is the Franco-Israeli MP Meyer Habib. At the same time, the Constitutional Council publishes its latest decisions. Invalidation! Meyer Habib, 61 and father of four, is no longer the deputy (Les Républicains) of the 8e constituency of French people living abroad, which brings together eight countries, including Israel, Italy, Greece and Turkey. Right when his friend “Bibi” has just returned to power and is making his first visit abroad since forming his cabinet.
In Paris, at home, it was to be the day of glory of Mr. Habib, it is the end of his mandate. It’s too bad. The sages estimated that the supporters of Mr. Habib, who had won by only 193 votes in June 2022, had continued to campaign on election day and irregularly offered to vote electronically in place of some voters.
When he leaves the room where the meeting is held, Meyer Habib trembles with emotion. He dismisses a television crew waiting for a reaction. “Do you know that they annulled my election? They took four desks away from me! I have the biggest manipulator in front of me”he says, trembling with rage against his rival, Deborah Abisror-de Lieme, who had seized the Constitutional Council.
Not having been declared ineligible, Meyer Habib will be able to present himself again, in April or May. And he has a chance of winning, as his lack of manners and his excesses seduce a French electorate in Israel which leans more and more to the right and where the Sephardim have more and more weight. He can count on the support of Mr. Netanyahu, who recorded a video of support for his election in 2017, as well as that of the traditionalist rabbis to whom he promised to sit. “in the name of the Torah”. No more question, on the other hand, of chartering buses on the day of the vote and beware of the excesses which are customary during the electoral campaigns.
” My father and my mother “
Throughout Benyamin Netanyahu’s stay in Paris, from Thursday February 2 to Saturday February 4, Meyer Habib busied himself alongside the Israeli Prime Minister and his wife, Sara, coming to their hotel, accompanying them as always come to visit Paris. In front of the members of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, which however did not want him at its head in 2010, he distributes the word, gives “Chief Rabbi” to anyone who looks like a cleric. His emotion and his energy amuse as much as they can annoy. According to internal sources, he did not hesitate to castigate the ambassador of Israel in France, Yaël German, absent throughout the visit of the Prime Minister: she had announced her resignation after the return to power of “Bibi”. Two weeks before this visit, Meyer Habib spent two hours with the Netanyahus over the weekend.
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