Middle East conflict stirs up French domestic tensions
The flare-up in the Middle East sparked by the Hamas attack on Israel is rekindling deep tensions in France.
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"The French debate is highly inflammable," said Jean Garrigues, a professor of political history at the University of Orleans in central France. "Even many of the so-called experts are biased, which makes it very difficult to establish an objective neutrality."
Garrigues said there was an undercurrent of what he called "repentance" in France.
It is linked to both its history as colonial master in the Arab world, notably in Lebanon, Syria, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, and to collaboration during World War II, when some officials in France helped the German occupiers round up Jews and send them to death camps.
This makes President Emmanuel Macron's government mindful of balancing its strong support for Israel's fight against Hamas with an equally firm stance on the protection of Palestinian civilians.
In the latest example of deep polarisation among politicians, National Assembly Speaker Yael Braun-Pivet drew heavy criticism for her trip at the weekend to Israel, where she gave public support to Israel's "right to defend itself".
Far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon accused Braun-Pivet of "setting up camp in Israel to encourage the massacre" in Gaza.
Braun-Pivet retorted that she was "very shocked" and in turn accused Melenchon of using the French term "camper" as a veiled reference to concentration camps.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne quickly weighed in, saying the parliament speaker had been the target of "despicable accusations", with others accusing Melenchon of anti-Semitism.
The remarks were tantamount to "calling Jews the party of foreign interests and of war", said Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF).
'Beyond community lines'
Melenchon's party, La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) has also stayed clear of calling Hamas a "terrorist" organisation after the attacks.
That has created deep divisions with the Socialists and Greens, with whom it is allied in a loose leftist opposition coalition known as NUPES.
"The Israel-Palestinian conflict resonates far beyond community lines in France," said Marc Hecker, a researcher at IFRI, a French think tank on international relations.
It is also the only geopolitical topic "that can make tens of thousands of people take to the streets", he said, unlike the war in Ukraine.
Hecker said pro-Palestinian sentiment could be found as much in neo-Gaullist quarters seeking closer ties with the Arab world after the colonial war in Algeria, as among leftist Catholics and far-left anti-imperialist movemements.
Thousands of people demonstrated in several French cities at the weekend in support of Palestinians, some shouting slogans designating Israelis "murderers" and Macron as "their accomplice".
(with AFP)
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