The leftist leader asked students to defy the government by parading the Palestinian flags “wherever possible” to show their solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
The leader of La France Insoumise left party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, voiced on Saturday his support of the Lebanese resistance and urged French students to continue to show solidarity with Palestine and Lebanon, the Lebanese news network Al-Mayadeen reported.
Mélenchon made the comments at a rally in Paris in support of Palestine and Lebanon. He responded to earlier remarks by French Minister of Higher Education Patrick Hetzel, who denounced pro-Palestinian demonstrations at institutions like Sciences Po Paris, saying that they stand against France’s principles of “neutrality and secularism”.
The leftist leader denounced the minister’s remarks while affirming that discussing “geopolitics, including the situation in Gaza, was not an affront to secularism.”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon called on French students to speak freely and stand in solidarity with Palestine, Lebanon.
“Let us be heard in Lebanon, Let us be heard in Palestine, There is a France that rejects the massacres and demands an immediate ceasefire!”
“We no longer want… pic.twitter.com/8X4mZciQw4
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) October 6, 2024
“Talking about geopolitics is not an attack on secularism,” Melenchon stressed.
“I call on students to defy this prohibition and speak freely, because we live in a free country,” he added.
Mélenchon was adamant as well in voicing his support of the Lebanese resistance in Lebanon.
He told the crowd that “Hezbollah is a component of the Lebanese people, and it is not up to us to decide who is a good or bad component,” according to Al-Mayadeen.
The leftist leader asked students to defy the government by parading the Palestinian flags “wherever possible” to show their solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
He urged students as well to include the Lebanese flags as a sign of solidarity with the Lebanese people against Israel’s war on the country.
“Let the Lebanese know that we have not forgotten them or left them to the violence and murder of their terrifying neighbor,” in a reference to “Israel”, Al-Mayadeen quoted him as saying.
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Gaza Genocide Continues
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 41,825 Palestinians have been killed, and 96910 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(PC, Al-Mayadeen)
