Given the content of the French public debate since October 7 and the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, we could fear the worst from the debate without a vote organized this Monday in the National Assembly on the situation in the Middle East. There was the worst: speeches without nuance to support the policies of the Israeli government, on the right and some in the majority; there were the heavy political references; he suffered the beating suffered by the president of the rebellious group, Mathilde Panot while she demanded a cease-fire, certainly still refusing to qualify Hamas as terrorist but believing that the Israeli colonization policy “does not excuse” the “terror unleashed” by Hamas. Without the head of the Assembly police, Yaël Braun-Pivet, doing much about it.
While we no longer really expected it, after a speech by the Prime Minister largely interrupted by rebels who were definitely never tempted by a low profile, there was also the best. “General de Gaulle said that when Maurice Couve de Murville (who was his last Prime Minister, Editor’s note) entered a room, the temperature dropped by five degrees, quotes Jean-Louis Bourlanges. I fear having to subscribe, after the waves of eloquence I have heard, to this tradition. » The mere presence of the Modem spokesperson this Monday and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the podium in fact imposed silence even in the press galleries.
Brilliant speech
Starting his speech at the creation of Israel by the UN in 1947, Jean-Louis Bourlanges delivered a brilliant performance, all in measure, all in clarity. “If the words have any meaning, it is clear that the aggression carried out by Hamas is at the same time terrorist, constituting a generalized war crime and backed by a discourse of an assumed genocidal nature”, that is for clarity. “We must analyze without blinders or prejudices what has changed in recent years on the Middle Eastern scene. As Monsignor Vesco, Archbishop of Algiers, rightly said: ”The barbaric violence of Hamas is without excuse but is not without cause”. (…) How in these conditions can we not see that today it is the ideological heirs of the assassins of Yitzhak Rabin and Anwar el-Sadat who together hold the pen of the tragedy that is being written before our eyes? “, that’s for measurement.
Few people dared to interrupt President Bourlanges’ speech, with the exception of related deputy LR Meyer Habib. This elected representative of French people abroad in the constituency which covers Israel is a claimed supporter of Benyamin Netanyahu. However, it was during this speech that all the divisions of national representation – in all the blocs or almost – were most clearly apparent. Expected, of course, to attack Mathilde Panot, spokesperson this Monday for a party which has been carrying out controversies for two weeks, from the benches of the right and the majority. Easy, obviously, to attack unequivocal speeches coming from the right when you are on the left.
Go-to-war speech
We felt part of the majority, even sometimes Jean-Louis Bourlanges’ own group, uncomfortable. In any case not in line with every word of the speech, very widely applauded by the left, and in particular by the rebels, only too happy to see a respectable personality from the majority speaking, like them, of a “war crime”. It must be said that we were able to hear comments this Monday afternoon that we had not heard much from the mouths of majority leaders, even less from the executive: “A population without a future and therefore without hope could could she be tempted by moderate parties who had nothing to offer her? “, Bourlanges said, speaking of the Palestinians.
Contrary to the questions to the government on October 10, the left was no longer the only one to talk about international law in the war between Israel and Hamas. In speeches that are of course different, the MoDem, therefore, but also Élisabeth Borne, have nonetheless changed their words in two weeks. The Renaissance speeches, in comparison, may have seemed more hawkish. We clearly felt and understood the sincere emotion of Mathieu Lefèvre, who returned from Yaël Braun-Pivet’s trip to Israel, when he spoke of the sites of Hamas crimes. But his almost unequivocal speech hardly gives substance to the conclusion of the deputy for Val-de-Marne: “We will never fall into the trap of division, the friend of hatred. »
As a good centrist “in all his states” Jean-Louis Bourlanges tried to get everyone to agree to conclude. “We are Pavlovians of discord, we are never happier than when we clash, we oppose each other. There is no question of unanimity between us of course. We all have our sensitivities. (…) But the main thing, the vast majority of this Assembly, agrees on fairly clear things. » Of course, everyone is shocked by the attacks of October 7. Certainly, the objective of the two States seems to be a consensus. Of course, there is self-defense. Certainly there are inhumane conditions in Gaza. But even in these – possible – consensuses, politics also means marking one’s priorities. Monday afternoon, everyone had their own. As such, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict disunites the Assembly and the groups.