The mobilizations to demand an “immediate ceasefire in Gaza” brought together thousands of demonstrators across France on Saturday who urged Paris to invest more for the benefit of the Palestinians in resolving the conflict.
After a first wave of bans decided by the public authorities, pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched for the third consecutive weekend, sometimes braving, as in Paris, pouring rain. In the capital, the police headquarters counted 7,000 demonstrators. For the CGT, 100,000 people in France including 60,000 in Paris took to the streets.
French demonstrators were not the only ones to march this Saturday in Europe. Several thousand people demonstrated in the center of Lisbon. “Quiet” rallies also took place in Warsaw and Amsterdam, according to the authorities. In the economic capital of the Netherlands, another demonstration demanding the release of hostages held by Hamas was also organized.
“This is a serious time for our Palestinian friends,” summarized Bertrand Heilbronn, president of the France Palestine Solidarité association, in Paris. Describing “indescribable suffering”, the activist for the Palestinian cause also questioned the “illegible position” of the French executive “which shames our country”.
“France must immediately call for a ceasefire so that the guns fall silent,” said Sophie Binet, general secretary of the CGT who, alongside the Solidaires and FSU unions, relayed the collective’s calls for demonstrations to a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis. “The bloody attacks by Hamas that we condemn in no way justify the collective punishment that is being organized in Gaza,” she said.
Omar Alsoumi, leader of the Urgence Palestine collective, criticizes the military operations targeting the Al-Chifa hospital in Gaza which Israel justifies by the presence of a Hamas marker installed in particular in a network of tunnels, which the Islamist movement denies . “There is a plan” which is “to make the Gaza Strip totally uninhabitable, totally unlivable,” thundered the activist. “This is a project of ethnic cleansing. It is a genocidal project carried out by the fascist government in Israel,” he accused.
Left-wing leaders
In Paris, the demonstration took place in the presence of representatives of the left: Marine Tondelier (EELV), Fabien Roussel (PCF), Olivier Faure (PS) and Mathilde Panot, leader of the LFI deputies.
Ahead of the Parisian parade, the rebellious leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon conceded “an evolution in the position of the President of the Republic” for whom it “took thirty-two days to achieve that we heard the word spoken for the first time ceasefire.” Emmanuel Macron called on November 9 to “work for a ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas. But Mr. Mélenchon immediately tackled “the position of France (which) in this context appears almost complacent with the war crimes taking place there”.
Mobilizations in more than 80 cities
According to the CGT, mobilizations were planned in 83 cities. In Lyon, between 7,600 (prefecture) and 15,000 to 20,000 people (organizers) marched shouting “Palestine will live, Palestine will win”. “Social networks have changed everything, we see what’s happening,” said Nouri Haytham, 27, explaining, according to him, the crowds of the Lyon procession.
In Marseille, several hundred people gathered near the Old Port. A minute of silence was observed for the Palestinian victims, noted an AFP journalist. In Toulouse, a procession brought together between 1,200 people according to the prefecture and 4,000 according to the CGT.
In Nice, Perpignan, Strasbourg: the parades included several hundred people, sometimes beyond such as in Rennes, Saint-Etienne or Montpellier where the prefecture counted 1,800 participants.