“Comments from another age”, “I was moved”, “it touched me personally”, “these words are filthy”, the anthology of reactions was unanimous this Friday in front of the Palais-Bourbon. A rally in support of LFI deputy Carlos Martens Bilongo was held this Friday near the National Assembly, to denounce the racist arrest against him of an elected RN the day before in the hemicycle. “Let him return to Africa”, admitted having launched Grégoire de Fournas Thursday during an intervention by the elected LFI Carlos Martens Bilongo, who spoke about the “drama of illegal immigration”.
Around 1:15 p.m., MP Martens Bilongo (Val-d’Oise) was welcomed to the applause of his Nupes colleagues (LFI, PS, PCF, EELV) dressed in their tricolor scarves, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and several hundreds of people, with French and coalition party flags.
“I am torn between joy and sadness. I received a lot of messages of support (…) My person was attacked but also people who look like me. Millions of French people were attacked yesterday. In 2022, we must not give way to these ideas”, underlined the parliamentarian during this rally organized by LFI. “The sentence must be proportional to the act, the proportion is outside”, also claimed the Insoumis leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who wants the resignation of the deputy RN Grégoire de Fournas as well as the disciplinary sanction “the most severe” of the Assembly: a temporary exclusion.
“They are what they have always been, racists, fascists”
The office of the Assembly, its highest collegiate body, meets at 2:30 p.m. to decide. “They are what they have always been, racists, fascists”, launched Jean-Luc Mélenchon about the RN. “A threshold has been crossed,” said the leader of the parliamentary group Mathilde Panot. The RN deputies “do not scare us”, she said before the crowd sang a Marseillaise.
Elected PS, communists and environmentalists also gave their support to the microphone. LFI MP for Val-de-Marne Rachel Keke called for “fraternity”. “No one is going to intimidate us. I am a deputy like them (the elected RN). At some point, there is respect, we are not going to give up. “We are revolted by what happened,” added MP Clémentine Autain. “We need to come together, to be very strong in the face of racism, xenophobia, the project of the far right”.