The controversy is growing regarding the LFI’s position vis-à-vis Hamas. The rebels are in fact accused of finding justifications for the attack against Israel, by denouncing with the same voice the Islamist movement and Israeli colonization, a position out of step with the rest of the political class.
“The armed offensive by Palestinian forces led by Hamas comes in a context of intensification of the Israeli occupation policy in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” the party’s parliamentary group said in a statement on Saturday. MP François Ruffin, on the other hand, distinguished himself from his comrades by expressing “total condemnation of the Hamas attack”.
Mélenchon believes that “the ceasefire must be imposed”
Party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for his part, explained that “all the violence unleashed against Israel and in Gaza only proves one thing: violence only produces and reproduces itself.” “Horrified, our thoughts and compassion go out to all the distraught populations affected by all of this. The ceasefire must be imposed,” he added on X.
A position further supported by LFI deputy Louis Boyard: “For too long has France turned a blind eye to colonization and abuses in Palestine. For too long, France has kept the violence of the Israeli state and that of Palestinian armed groups back to back.”
The anger of socialist elected officials
These declarations aroused the anger of elected socialists, allies of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party within Nupes. “Jews are always responsible for what happens to them. It is a constant in anti-Semitic discourse,” responded PS senator Laurence Rossignol to Louis Boyard.
“To the useful idiots of the Hamas terrorists who exonerate them by putting them into perspective in the name of the political impasse of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, of the continuation of colonization, of Netanyahu… you disgust me. That we find them on the left is unbearable,” said socialist deputy Jérôme Guedj. The president of the Court of Auditors and former socialist minister Pierre Moscovici came out of his reserve to judge the positioning of LFI “as shocking as it is desperate”.
The NPA reiterates “its support for the Palestinians”
The mayor of Reims, Arnaud Robinet, member of Edouard Philippe Horizons’ party, for his part asked for “the lifting of parliamentary immunity” of rebellious deputies who “crossed the red line”. “Shame on LFI which brings back to back an attacked democracy and a murderous terrorist regime. This equating is in fact a legitimization of Hamas terrorism,” also denounced the president of Crif, Yonathan Arfi.
The NPA of Philippe Poutou, who recently proposed to LFI to lead a common list of the next Europeans, for its part went against the political class and provided “its support for the Palestinians and the means of struggle that they chose to resist.” The Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) announced Saturday evening its intention to file a complaint against the far-left party for advocating terrorism.