2023-11-10 11:02:14
Manuel Bompard, coordinator of La France insoumise, and Mathilde Panot, leader of the “rebellious” deputies, during the demonstration in support of the Palestinian population, Place de la République, in Paris, October 22, 2023. BENJAMIN GIRETTE FOR “ THE WORLD ”
In Paris, in front of the Japy gymnasium (11th), a thick crowd surrounded anti-racist activist Albert Herszkowicz on the evening of Thursday, November 9. Girded in their tricolor scarves, several deputies from La France insoumise (LFI) came to listen, alongside several hundred people, to the commemoration of the victims of Kristallnacht led by the Nazis in 1938, of which it was the 85th anniversary. . At the microphone, Albert Herszkowicz, president of Memorial 98, the association organizing the event, ironically said “rejoiced” of the success of his evening: usually, he struggles to bring together around fifty people. “We are not completely naive and we know that the concordance of dates has to do with the affluence”, he continued, mainly in the direction of LFI.
A few hours earlier, the first left-wing party, which has increased controversies since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 and the Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip that followed, had announced its intention to go to this gathering in order to “reaffirm the rejection of anti-Semitism, racism and fascism”. One way to compensate for his notable absence at the march against anti-Semitism organized on Sunday November 12 by the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, and the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, to which the Socialist Party, Europe Ecologie- The Greens and the Communist Party will surrender.
“It’s important to be there because there is a rise in anti-Semitism in France”justifies the deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis Aurélie Trouvé, surrounded by other members of the LFI management, such as elected officials Clémence Guetté (Val-de-Marne), Sarah Legrain (Paris) or MEP Manon Aubry.
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To justify its decision to boycott the November 12 march, LFI judged “impractical” to parade “alongside a Nazi party”, after the leaders of the National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, had joined the call. If this decision is supposed to have been discussed in a group meeting at the National Assembly, Jean-Luc Mélenchon directly set the tone, by describing this demonstration as “pretext of anti-Semitism”. “Friends of unconditional support for the massacre have their meeting”he also wrote, in reference to the bombings in Gaza, sparking new protests.
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Thursday evening, Robert Hirsch, of the Network of Actions Against Anti-Semitism and All Racisms (RAAR), created two years ago in memory of Ilan Halimi, a French Jewish man savagely killed in 2006, criticized Ms. Mélenchon, judging « inadmissible » to make participants in this march “accomplices to the massacre”, and therefore the war led by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “First it will be Jews who will go there”continued Robert Hirsch, while warning the handful of LFI elected officials present. “It’s not enough to show up tonight”he judged, inviting them “to propose something else”.
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