News - Middle East: Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has expressed deep concern and condemnation over the escalating campaign in France of gagging, repressing, and intimidating pro-Palestinian voices and those critical of Israel. This campaign entails a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the right to peaceful assembly.

In a press release from its headquarters in Geneva, the Euro-Med Monitor has monitored the intensification, over the past few days, of official and institutional repression against university students in France who are peacefully protesting against Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip. 

"The French government has used various forms of intimidation to silence activists speaking out against the genocide, including the targeting of pro-Palestine political figures," it added.

The Monitor highlighted French police forcibly dispersed a student sit-in protest in the Sorbonne University square in Paris on 29 April, removing the tents of students protesting the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in the Strip, which has been ongoing since 7 October 2023. The incident took place days after the suppression of similar protests at the Sciences Po (political science) research university in Paris, which resulted in the head of the greater Paris region cutting off the prestigious university’s funding.

Euro-Med Monitor has documented testimonies of Sorbonne University students, who report on a peaceful protest movement in solidarity with the Palestinians and to raise awareness of the genocide in Gaza. Police broke up their events by force and took down the tents, the students told Euro-Med Monitor, and dealt with many people in a shockingly violent manner, dragging them onto the ground. The police removed 50 protesters from the campus, who were then taken away in groups with the assistance of security guards.

Videos reviewed by Euro-Med Monitor document two students being physically dragged and otherwise assaulted by French police officers. Notably, on the very same day, the Sorbonne University administration closed its buildings during peaceful protests, while students chanted slogans such as "free Palestine" and another calling on the university administration to condemn Israel.

Euro-Med Monitor warns of another form of repression and intimidation, evidenced by the summoning of Mathilde Panot—the head of a French leftist party and parliamentary faction—by the French police, on charges of “justifying terrorism”.

Panot insists that this is the first time in the modern history of France that the head of a parliamentary faction has been summoned “on such serious grounds” and has warned against the dangerous exploitation of justice with the aim of political repression and preventing public freedoms.

France Unbowed (LFI), Panot’s party, is currently the strongest left-wing political force in France and criticized what it considers to be an erosion of the freedom of opinion and expression of those who condemn Israel’s “genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The party leader and former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon described the summonses of political figures critical of Israel as an unprecedented event in the history of French democracy, accusing the authorities of “protecting the genocide” taking place in the Strip.

The intimidation campaigns have also affected French activists of Palestinian origin, and candidates for the European Parliament, Rima Hassan. French police summoned Hassan because of her defense of Gaza, on charges of “justifying terrorism”.

Hassan expressed concern to the French newspaper Le Monde about the climate surrounding active political voices in France on the issue of Palestine, condemning the political pressure aimed at compromising public freedoms and threatening the state of democracy, especially in the context of the European parliamentary elections scheduled for next June—a crucial political moment for the future of the French people.