Alexis Delafontaine with AFP / Photo credits: Bertrand GUAY / AFP
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7:07 p.m., May 28, 2024
La France insoumise MP Sébastien Delogu waved a Palestinian flag in the National Assembly. Faced with the uproar, President Yaël Braun-Pivet suspended the session. The MP was excluded from the chamber for two weeks.
The deputy La France insoumise Sébastien Delogu brandished a Palestinian flag in the Assembly hemicycle on Tuesday during the session of questions to the government, causing an interruption of the session by President Yaël Braun-Pivet who denounced “unacceptable” behavior “. While Minister Franck Riester answered a question from LFI MP Alma Dufour on the situation in Gaza, Sébastien Delogu stood up, holding a Palestinian flag. Faced with the uproar, President Yaël Braun-Pivet suspended the session. She announced at the resumption of the session that she was “immediately” convening a bureau of the Assembly “to be able to rule on the case of Sébastien Delogu”.
A violent verbal altercation
The LFI deputy @sebastiendelogu waves a Palestinian flag during the government question session.
The President of the National Assembly @YaelBRAUNPIVET suspends the meeting. #DirectAN#QAGpic.twitter.com/aTJz7ivZIZ— LCP (@LCP) May 28, 2024
The tumult continued in the Salle des Quatre Colonnes, where a violent verbal altercation took place between LFI deputy David Guiraud and LR Meyer Habib. “This gentleman is a pig, he shames France,” said the first, “you scum,” replied the second. The bailiffs intervened between the two men. “The president was right. We could not remain in public session with such provocation. This is the last step in a strategy of brutalizing the public debate. Sébastien Delogu prefers the strategy of political coup rather than the strategy of peace in the Middle East. It does nothing to advance peace in the Middle East,” responded MP Mathieu Lefèvre (Renaissance), president of the France-Israel friendship group.
A Palestinian flag brandished in the hemicycle: very heated altercation between the LFI deputy @GuiraudInd and the related deputy LR @Meyer_Habib.#DirectAN#QAGpic.twitter.com/WAJYilhZCl
— LCP (@LCP) May 28, 2024
On the barbarians of Hamas??”, he commented. Questioned by the press, Sébastien Delogu affirmed that his gesture was a “personal initiative”. The Assembly’s regulations provide for sanctions against any member “who engages in demonstrations disturbing order or who provokes a tumultuous scene.”
A few minutes after the events, Europe 1 learned that the deputy was excluded from the National Assembly for two weeks.