Making Gaza the most important subject within the European elections, a double or nothing technique for La France insoumise | EUROtoday

A day of campaigning on the social theme awaits Manon Aubry on Monday May 13. The head of the record for the European elections of La France insoumise (LFI) goes with François Ruffin to Amiens, to the location of the Metex manufacturing unit, threatened with closure. Then she is going to give a gathering within the night, accompanied not solely by the native rebellious MP, but in addition by her colleague within the European Parliament Marina Mesure and the previous labor inspector and now candidate for the European elections Anthony Smith.

The alternative to speak about one thing apart from Gaza and the battle within the Middle East wherein La France Insoumise appears locked in for a number of weeks. But additionally for the top of the LFI record to exist extra, because the figures of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Rima Hassan have relegated that of Manon Aubry to second place.

Read additionallySpitzenkandidat, Schengen, ECB… these phrases you’ll hear about between now and the European elections

The strategists of La France insoumise have determined to make the state of affairs in Gaza one of many sturdy axes of their European marketing campaign. They positioned the Franco-Palestinian activist Rima Hassan in seventh place on their record. At 32, this worldwide legislation lawyer labored specifically on the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra) and on the National Court of Asylum, whereas founding the NGO Observatory of Refugee Camps.

For the rebellious MP Clémence Guetté – coordinator of the LFI program – this technique is justified “because it is happening today and because it is a European issue”. “The European Union could break its association agreement with Israel. This is a European diplomatic issue,” she defined on Wednesday May 8 on France Inter. “It’s not us who are making this an electoral issue, it’s a human emergency,” she added. In this context, “the voice of Rima Hassan matters enormously for us and for carrying the voice of peace.”

Long-time help of the Palestinian trigger, just like the left as a complete, La France insoumise can hardly be accused of political co-opting on this subject. Nevertheless, the choice to supply an eligible place to Rima Hassan on her record for the European elections permits the rebels to hyperlink deep conviction and electoral technique.

Behind this selection lies the need to mobilize electorates who voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon within the presidential election however usually little mobilized through the European elections: younger individuals as a complete and the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods in massive cities or their suburbs, lots of whom have an immigrant background.

“The Arabs of France are mobilizing more for the Palestinian question than for their own living conditions. We know that in the racist climate of the French debate, when politicians talk about the Palestinians, somewhere they also talk about us, the Arabs,” believes political activist Taha Bouhafs, near LFI, in an interview with Mediapart.

Youth mobilized for Gaza

A wager that might be on the verge of successful, based on rebellious MP Éric Coquerel. “I observe that this neighborhood electorate, because it is sensitive to the Palestinian question and questions of colonization, is interested in what we are saying and is interested in our campaign whereas usually they do not go not vote in the European elections,” he judges.

Likewise, the mobilization of students in universities to denounce the murderous operations carried out by the Israeli army in Gaza – the latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health shows more than 35,000 deaths – shows that the Palestinian question is currently at the heart of their concerns. The blockages are supported by Rima Hassan, whether through messages posted on social networks or through trips to the field, during which she is systematically greeted with applause.

And while the other left-wing parties hold essentially the same discourse as La France insoumise on the Palestinian question, with the exception of the use of the term “genocide” made by LFI, it’s certainly the insoumis who seem on the forefront on this combat. “We will see if this comes to fruition on June 9. In the meantime, while we have never achieved more than 6 or 6.5% in the European elections, the polls give us above this time,” rejoices Eric Coquerel.

But this technique is double-edged. Because if Rima Hassan has her admirers, she additionally attracts the wrath of many detractors: a defamatory video broadcast on X by advertiser Frank Tapiro has recorded greater than 1,000,000 views. And this isn’t an remoted case. Rima Hassan and different LFI figures – corresponding to Aymeric Caron, Thomas Portes, David Guiraud, Danièle Obono or Louis Boyard – have often acquired insults and threats since October 7 and this well-known press launch revealed after the bloodbath of practically 1,200 Israelis by Hamas.

La France insoumise then refused to make use of the phrases “terrorism” or “terrorist” to explain the Hamas assault or Hamas itself and its press launch instantly talked about “a context of intensification of the occupation policy Israeli forces in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Read alsoA European campaign under constant threat of foreign interference

LFI's positions on this issue have since constituted angles of attack for the far right, the right, but also for the government – ​​and even some on the left. And the presence of Rima Hassan in the campaign had the effect of multiplying the invectives.

“It is because our political adversaries and part of the media have chosen to attack us on this that the Palestinian question takes up so much space in the campaign, regrets Éric Coquerel. We try to highlight other themes, but we are systematically questioned about Gaza.”

Jean-Luc Mélenchon once more accused of “excesses”

Especially because the political adversaries of the rebels don’t hesitate to caricature their feedback, and even to attribute to them positions that they don’t defend. Despite her denials and clarifications, Rima Hassan is often accused of wanting the destruction of Israel and, as a result of she had known as on Sciences Po college students to show, writing on X “the time has come for the uprising”the coordinator of La France insoumise Manuel Bompard was even requested if his social gathering was calling for an “intifada” – a time period introduced because the Arabic translation of the phrase “uprising”.

“I spend more time commenting on the intellectual laziness of others than discussing substantive issues,” lamented the candidate on April 29 on France 2.

However, LFI will not be exempt from all reproaches. The press launch of October 7 had already marked a rupture inside Nupes (New Popular Ecological and Social Union). Seven months later, tensions are even higher between the previous companions, socialists and environmentalists criticizing the “excesses” of the rebellious chief, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The latter notably misplaced his mood on April 18 by drawing a parallel between the president of the University of Lille and the Nazi Adolf Eichmann, because of the former's resolution to ban a convention on Palestine that the previous candidate for the presidential election was to happen with Rima Hassan. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has since contested any extra, explaining that his phrases referred to Hannah Arendt's e book, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”.

He additionally attacked the socialist Jérôme Guedj, who had questioned the emblem of the coed affiliation organizing the occasion, Libre Palestine, whose design represents a map of Israel and the Palestinian Territories however with out borders. First throughout his speech on April 18, by treating him with out naming him as a “coward” and “an informer”, but in addition in a column, revealed on April 29 on L'insoumission (a web site of La France insoumise), wherein he describes his former comrade as “moving around the stake where the leash of his membership holds him”. Enough to as soon as once more open the door to accusations of anti-Semitism and make any hope of union of the left not possible after the European elections.

A “bad buzz” that Manon Aubry would in all probability even have achieved effectively with out, whose voice has issue rising in the course of all this tumult. The MEP additionally creates controversy with a purpose to exist. In a name launched on X on May 3 to ban the extra remuneration of European deputies, she accused her rivals of lining their pockets “full of money” by being “paid by lobbies, companies or governments in addition to their elected compensation”, focusing on Valérie specifically Hayer, Raphaël Glucksmann and François-Xavier Bellamy, whereas their further revenue doesn’t come from lobbies however from the sale of books.