Insoumise France is once again embroiled in a controversy over the situation in the Middle East. LFI MP David Guiraud sparked a political storm on Saturday, accused of relativizing the atrocities of Hamas on October 7 in Israel by seeming to draw a parallel with the massacres of Sabra and Chatila, in Lebanon in 1982, for which he wrongly attributed responsibility. directly to the Jewish state.
In a video captured during a trip to Tunis, we can hear the MP pronounce the following sentence: “The baby in the oven was done, in fact, by Israel, the disembowelled mother was done, it is true, by Israel.” Then after a hesitation: “I think it was in Sabra and Chatila”. Elected from the North, David Guiraud is, among the rebellious deputies, one of the fiercest defenders of the Palestinian cause and one of the most severe detractors of Israel.
The MP threatened with filing a complaint
These statements sparked a flurry of indignant reactions and threats of filing a complaint against the MP. “There seems to be a competition in rebellious France over who will be the most abject. For the moment, he has just climbed onto the first step, but he could be dethroned, knowing him, by another of his colleagues,” declared Marine Le Pen, the leader of the deputies of the National Rally. These comments “shock everyone,” she added.
“Rebellious France covers itself with a little more shame and dishonor every day. History will record that French deputies took the side of Hamas terrorists,” said the leader of Les Républicains senators Bruno Retailleau on the X platform.
Macronist MP from the North Violette Spillebout announced in the newspaper The voice of the North that she was going to contact the public prosecutor for these “negationist comments”. Meyer Habib, LR deputy for French people abroad, for his part announced that a denunciation would be made “to the Paris prosecutor under article 40 of the code of criminal procedure” against him “for advocating terrorism and incitement to racial hatred.
David Guiraud admits his mistake
The Sabra and Chatila massacres in 1982 were committed by Lebanese Christian phalanxes during an Israeli military intervention in Lebanon. But Israel was also held responsible for not having prevented these massacres.
In a long series of messages on “No, I was not ‘putting into perspective’ Hamas’ war crimes, which we have clearly condemned. Let me be clear, I never doubted the massacre, nor the atrocity of the acts committed against civilians,” he wrote.