October 7 anniversary: ​​Emmanuel Macron’s name booed during speech tribute to Michel Barnier at the Dôme in Paris

2024-10-07 21:22:13

While Prime Minister Michel Barnier gave a speech this Monday evening in tribute to the victims of Hamas on 7 October 2023 at the Dôme in Paris, the mention of Head of State Emmanuel Macron sparked boos in some rows of the audience. Some in the room even shouted “weapons,” as the French president called for an end to arms deliveries to Israel on Saturday.

After the tensions generated by this appeal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Michel Barnier assured that “the security of the State of Israel will never be negotiable” and that this country found itself “in a situation of self-defense” by intervening in Lebanon and Gaza.

“France never abandons its children”

“You can count on the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister (…) on all members of the government to protect our compatriots of the Jewish faith,” he added, while anti-Semitic acts in France almost tripled in the first half of the year. “We will not let anything pass” and “we will continue to fight anti-Semitism by all means,” he promised.

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“France will never abandon its children in the face of the horror of this terrorist attack, of this barbarism that France has condemned from day one in the face of the incessant attacks of Hezbollah and Iran,” he insisted. “On October 7, early in the morning, life gave way to anguish, tears, horror, carnage, emptiness, even desperation. We will not forget (…) we will never forget”, declared the prime minister who had received the families of the two French hostages in the afternoon, after Emmanuel Macron in the morning.

The head of government also mentioned “the situation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank (which) also shocks our conscience”, and deplored the “victims”, including civilians, “on both sides of the border with Lebanon ”. He reiterated that France will support “any initiative that allows, in strict respect of the existence and security of Israel (…) to proceed towards a two-state solution, which is the key to lasting peace”.

Progress in identifying civilian victims

Against anti-Semitism, Michel Barnier proposes to “(consolidate) the resources mobilized” and to “(progress) in the identification of these acts” by entrusting this work to the Minister of the Seals Didier Migaud and his Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, present at the ceremony together to fifteen ministers, he also encouraged “the education of students in our schools, through constant dialogue with the associations”.

Before him, the president of the Crif Yonathan Arfi had launched a violent accusation against La France insoumise which is placed “in the field of dishonor” because the LFI “sees the resistance fighters where universal conscience recognizes the terrorists” and “chooses to hysterize our public debate, cultivating clientelism and identity assignments”. “That the LFI still finds allies on the Republican left is an outrage, a betrayal,” he criticized.