Several hundred pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather in Paris, despite ban

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP 19:56 p.m., October 12, 2023

Several hundred demonstrators gathered on Thursday evening at the Place de la République in Paris in support of the Palestinians, despite the ban on the demonstration, which was confirmed by the administrative court in the afternoon, an AFP journalist said. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin ordered a systematic ban on "pro-Palestinian demonstrations, because they are likely to generate disturbances to public order," after the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Israel, in a telegram sent to prefects on Thursday.

The ministry told AFP that "the organizers" of the protests, if they took place, and "the troublemakers" would be arrested. At around 18 p.m., surrounded by police officers, several hundred people chanted "Palestine will win" and "Israel murderer, Macron complicit", carrying Palestinian flags. "Zionists, Zionists, you are terrorists," protesters chanted. The police prefecture told AFP at around 18:15 p.m. that "the police force was ordered to disperse the people present, to arrest them, and even to issue fines."

"Proven risks of exporting this violence"

Police chief Laurent Nuñez banned the rally on Tuesday, saying it would be "the scene of attitudes, words and gestures, mainly of an anti-Jewish nature, inciting racial hatred and glorifying the terrorist attacks perpetrated in recent days in the Middle East." Following an urgent referral by several associations, the Paris Administrative Court decided on Thursday to uphold the ban. The judge considered that "the prefect of police, by prohibiting the demonstration in question, did not seriously and manifestly unlawfully infringe the freedoms of expression, assembly and demonstration".

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A few days after Hamas' offensive on Israel on October 7, the court invoked a context of "extreme violence" and the "proven risks of exporting this violence (...) on national soil" in particular with regard to the "resurgence of anti-Semitic acts" since the attack. The presidents of AFPS (Association France Palestine Solidarité), Bertrand Heilbronn, and FTCR (Federation of Tunisians for a Citizenship of the Two Shores), Mohammed Ben Saïd, told AFP that they did not maintain the call for demonstrations Thursday evening.

But "we're not going to give up," Heilbronn added. "These demonstrations give a political outlet to an anger that wants to be expressed, it is important that we can carry this voice." "It is high time for France to recover a little and get out of this unconditional support for the State of Israel," he added. For her part, the leader of CAPJPO-Europalestine, Olivia Zemor, told AFP that she intended to "let people" demonstrate "if they want to do so". On Wednesday evening, pro-Palestinian rallies were held in Nantes, Nîmes and Bordeaux, despite prefectural bans issued for lack of prior declaration as well as for reasons of public safety.