On Saturday 14th June mass demonstrations were called in Paris and around the country by all five major national union confederations, from the radical Solidaires to the far less combative CFDT. This follows a week of impressive solidarity action.
The Freedom Flotilla Twelve include MEP Rima Hassan, of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI). Illegally kidnapped by Israeli soldiers in the middle of the night, in international waters, along with the other eleven, she was imprisoned in Israel last Monday.
Fifteen years ago when another solidarity boat was attacked by Israel, the Zionist state preferred to execute in cold blood several of the unarmed activists. This time, they found themselves in a prison cell. Rima’s captors tried to pressurize her to sign a document recognizing that she had entered Israel illegally. “I’ll smash your head against the wall if you don’t sign this. We’ll deal with this in our way” she was told. She refused, along with most of her comrades. When she wrote “Free Palestine” on her cell wall, she was shackled hand and foot and put in solitary confinement, where she began a hunger strike. Israeli authorities abandoned the idea of putting her in front of an Israeli court, and placed her on a flight home, during which far-right Israeli passengers threatened her.
On Monday 9th of June, while the safety of the kidnapped activists was still unknown, large demos were held across the country, some of the biggest demonstrations called on the same day for several decades. Every evening since, thousands have gathered to protest in Paris and in other towns, including protest camps in central Paris lasting several days. On Friday the rally in Paris welcomed Rima Hassan home. In her speech she insisted that “the next boat is ready to sail”. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the France Insoumise declared that the flotilla was “A success which did more in a few days than the governments of the world have done” for Gaza. The same week dockers in Marseille had refused to handle spare parts for the Israeli massacre machine.
Macron and his Prime Minister Bayrou showed no objection to the elected French representative, Rima Hassan, being snatched in international waters. Macron pleaded that the Freedom Flotilla crew be allowed to return home, without a word of protest against the Israeli actions. Bayrou claimed that Rima and the others were just involved in a “publicity stunt”. At the time of writing, three of the kidnapped crew, including Yanis Mhamdi, a French journalist at the online publication Blast, have not yet been freed. The French government is unconcerned, too busy applauding Israel’s bombing of Iran.
Faced with mass public support for Palestine, Macron has once again denounced the famine imposed on Gaza and declared France’s ‘determination’ to recognize a Palestinian state, but not yet and not without conditions! What he wants is a Palestinian ‘Bantustan’ with a flag, but no army, and a government chosen by Western imperialism in consultation with the genocide team in Tel Aviv.
Macron’s support for the genocide continues even as he denounces it. His government has just approved the presence of Israel at a major arms fair held outside Paris next week. Nine Israeli companies will sell their arms ‘tested in combat’ on the people of Gaza.
Mainstream media has tried to downplay the freedom flotilla story, as well as telling lies about it. The release of the French MEP, Rima Hassan, from illegal detention by a French ally did not make the main national evening news and the 24-hour news channels had the Israeli ambassador, the Israeli army spokesman and their buddies chatting about the Freedom Flotilla calling it a ‘pleasure cruise’. They haven’t invited MEP Rima Hassan on their shows.
Despite the stronger tradition of mass protest in France than in the UK, in France the Palestine rallies have been smaller this past year than across the Channel, so this week’s mobilization has been a much needed boost. Having a largeish political formation (LFI have 71 MPs and 9 MEPs) 100% committed to stopping the genocide is tremendously useful.
This movement around the Freedom Flotilla has reinforced the position of the France Insoumise as the centre of gravity of radical politics in France. Other forces within the fragile electoral alliance which allowed the Left to have the largest group in parliament after last year’s elections, have reacted diversely. Olivier Faure of the Socialist Party denounced the illegal boarding of the Freedom Flotilla ship, the Madleen. Leaders of the Communist Party and the Greens made similar declarations.
But much of the Left, along with Macron, has been more interested in attacking the France Insoumise. Rima Hassan declared that Palestinian resistance was legitimate, and as a result two ministers asked if her French nationality could be withdrawn. Furthermore, this week, at the Socialist Party’s biennial conference, one MP, Jérôme Guedj, was applauded for calling Jean-Luc Mélenchon an ‘antisemitic bastard’. The Socialist Party leadership has so far refused to dissociate themselves from these insults.
Widespread sectarianism has stopped most of the radical and revolutionary left from defending the France Insoumise from the huge smear campaign rolled out in recent months, identical to the one against Jeremy Corbyn a few years back. Every left-wing activist should oppose it.
Rallies are planned next week against the arms fair in Le Bourget where Israel will be an honoured guest. This needs to be the beginning of a deepening of the movement. Israel must fall.
