Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s conference on Palestine, scheduled for Thursday evening with Franco-Palestinian activist Rima Hassan and contested by part of the political class, was banned by the Northern prefecture, which cited a risk of “disruption to the ‘public order”. The conference, which was initially to be held at the University of Lille, had already been banned for the first time, the university fearing that the rise in international tensions would not guarantee “the serenity of the debates”, after the recent attack by Iran against Israel.
Mélenchon denounces “an abuse of power of a banana republic”
The leader of La France insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced Thursday “an abuse of power of a banana republic” after the ban by the Northern prefecture of the conference on the Middle East that he was to hold in the evening in Lille with the candidate for the European elections Rima Hassan.
“Still banned from meeting. Yesterday the university. But today the prefecture and in an open public place. (…) Forbidding us from meeting on the pretext of our subject is an abuse of power of a banana republic”, lamented Jean-Luc Mélenchon, himself symbolically present in the penultimate place on the list led by Manon Aubry.
Fears of overflows on public roads
According to a press release from the prefecture, “calls for mobilization launched by several organizations” could lead to “rallies, crowds and clashes on public roads, in a climate of increased geopolitical tensions”.
She also underlines that the security forces are already strongly mobilized on Thursday by the vigipirate “emergency attack” plan, the Lille-Aston Villa European Cup match and a commemoration of the Warsaw ghetto uprising at the Lille synagogue. Finally, she considers that the private room reserved at the last minute for the event, limited to 328 people, does not allow the expected public to be accommodated in complete safety.
“This relentlessness against La France insoumise is totally intolerable. In the middle of an electoral campaign, the decision to cancel a public event in which members of the political opposition are to participate is an extremely serious precedent for our democracy,” reacted LFI in a press release .
GATHERING AND SPEAKS THIS EVENING IN LILLE AGAINST CENSORSHIP AND FOR PEACE WITH JEAN-LUC MÉLENCHON AND RIMA HASSAN.
After the cancellation of the conference organized by a student association at the University of Lille, it was rescheduled outside… pic.twitter.com/pQwCnA20An
— La France insoumise (@FranceInsoumise) April 18, 2024
“Cowards”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party announces that it has submitted a request to the prefecture for “a public gathering with Jean-Luc Mélenchon speaking against censorship and for peace” on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in the south of the city. Since the start of the week, several elected officials, such as the Macronist deputy Violette Spillebout, the RN parliamentarian Sébastien Chenu and the LR president of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, had called for this conference to be banned.
Subject of criticism, in particular, the logo of the organizing student association, “Free Palestine”, which shows a territory encompassing Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. A way of “denying the existence of the State of Israel” for some, including the head of the socialist list in the European elections, Raphael Glucksmann. In a press release, the association ensures that its logo “in no way denies the existence of Israel” and adds that it has “never promoted hatred or uttered anti-Semitic remarks”.
At a meeting on Wednesday evening in Roubaix, in front of 1,200 people according to the organizers, Jean-Luc Mélenchon castigated the “cowards who are not capable of defending freedom”, in reaction to the ban on the conference on the university premises. .
“Ridiculous debate”
“All those who do not absolutely agree with the massacre are immediately anti-Semites,” he added. LFI has made denunciation of Israeli operations in Gaza one of the main axes of its campaign for the European elections on June 9. “To ban a conference in the name of this little logo, I think it’s really a ridiculous debate,” Rima Hassan, seventh on the LFI list for the Europeans, commented at the end of the meeting.
The latter has in the past said it defends the solution of a “binational state” while LFI is in favor of the two-state solution like the vast majority of the political class. The one who describes Israel as a “fascist colonial entity” now says she is, as a “political leader,” “within the framework of two states side by side.”
Many left-wing executives, from the NPA to the PS, also criticized the university’s decision, including certain officials who disagree with the Insoumis on the Israeli-Palestinian question. Nantes, Créteil, Nanterre, Clermont-Ferrand… Jean-Luc Mélenchon has increased the number of conferences in universities in recent weeks, where he each time receives an enthusiastic welcome from students.